The Normal Hero and Revolutionary Girl Utena

I've been mulling over a few different thoughts about the necessity of reading outside one's genre and having hobbies outside of writing for a while. An outward focus rather than the self-copying inward focus.

As an example, I've been reading over at Deus ex Magical Girl lately on a rather...niche...segment of anime, manga, and light novels aimed (mostly) at girls.  D. G. D. Davidson has been discussing Revolutionary Girl Utena, a shoujo series aimed at teenaged girls, bringing a more balanced and thoughtful analysis of the anime and themes than the gloss of surface-level feminism that normally passes for shoujo criticism. Utena's an...acquired taste, but the lessons Davidson pulled from the show have echoed certain conversations that the PulpRev community has had about the heroes of weird fiction.

I’ve previously compared Revolutionary Girl Utena to Neon Genesis Evangelion, which it immediately succeeded. One of the many reasons I think Utena is the superior show is that it achieves a balance that Evangelion doesn’t. Evangelion makes all of its characters sickos; nobody is mentally healthy. Utena, by contrast, places all of its neurotics in orbit around a protagonist who is well-balanced, and who serves as a vehicle of catharsis for everyone else. Utena is an anchor for Revolutionary Girl Utena, a psychologically normal and resilient heroine who provides, as it were, the measure to which the other characters fall short, or the bulwark against which they uselessly buffet. Evangelion has no such anchor, because it contains not a single character who isn’t a basketcase.

Somewhere or other, G. K. Chesterton once wrote about this tendency in modern fiction, the tendency to make every character a neurotic, and he contrasted it with older works, especially fairy tales, in which the hero was usually normal while everything around him was twisted and weird. Chesterton considered the normal hero an essential element for weird fiction because he served as the story’s anchor point, a straight line that gave everything else in the story freedom to bend and twist as it willed. Comparing these two works, Evangelion and Utena, I think Chesterton is correct. There is a reason that the “straight man” is a standard character in comedy or fantasy, who provides a refuge of normalcy in the midst of the weirdness. Utena works in large part because Utena is the straight man. Evangelion does not work in part, I believe, because it lacks a straight man.

The emphasis here is mine.

Chesterton's advice here is the rationale for isekai alternate world fiction and Amazing Stories' particular brand of pulp science fiction. By anchoring in the familiar, these stories made their weirdness accessible as well as magnifying the impact of the weirdness. After all, contrast is key.

Pulp Revolution and Criticism

A bit of unique dialogue on the PulpRev opened up recently, when James "Grim" Desborough answered Jon Mollison's reviews of Pulp Nova. Since PulpRev usually only gets critically challenged by its close relatives from the Superversive movement, Jon passed along the link via the Twitters and I passed it on via Gab. In it, Grim describes the pulps, his intent for his Pulp Nova collection, and the concerns he has over the various pulp rebirth movements that have been appearing since 2010, such as neo-pulp, New Pulp, and PulpRev.



Having skimmed through the video, it appears that the same elements the Jon criticized Pulp Nova for--"[a work] mired in fashionably modern nihilism and deconstructivism rather than a forward looking attempt to recapture the magic of the pulp era"--were deliberate choices by Grim, who wanted to examine pulp through a modern lens. As I have yet to really delve into Grim's video, I will let it speak for itself. However, I do wonder if men's adventures such as James Bond, The Destroyer series, and Richard Marchinko's Seal Team adventures have already explored pulp through the modern eye.

What is clear, is that Jon and Grim are approaching the idea of pulp from different lens. Grim wants to look at pulp through the modern eye, while Jon wants to look at modern stories through a pulp eye. Neither wants to create "pulp-punk", replacing the gears and leather of steampunk fashion with the costumes of Indiana Jones style adventurers and 1930s gangsters.

The conversation continues:

Nixon Maxy answers Grim's concerns about the moral certitude found in pulp and new-pulp works:

I think Grim is making a mistake by equating a story having certain elements in it and those elements taking over a story. 

Characters can be gritty, unpleasant, and immoral and yet the world they occupy isn’t. The story doesn’t leave a nasty taste in your mouth. The plot and ending of say, The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler (which I just finished), handled differently could have been exceedingly unpleasant. Yet that ending was satisfying. Sure, it’s grim and one villain walks away scot free. Justice doesn’t come from the law and Marlowe doesn’t follow the law anyhow. It’s gritty, full of immoral people, lies, murder, and blackmail. But it also has a moral center. Marlowe, despite his foibles, is a noble man willing to risk his life and career to protect a woman he doesn’t know. He gets himself in trouble for it and gets nothing in return.

And Cirsova points out on Twitter:

Yeah. I think that so far as the pulp rev goes, what everyone is looking for is still different from person to person. It's part of what set us apart and occasionally at odds with the Superversives, because they were specifically looking for moral and ethical criteria in their fiction. Personally, I think the closer folks get to nailing down specifically "what the pulp rev is looking for" the likelier it'll die.

Which both Grim and I agree on.

I have tried to define pulp before, in broad terms and a "7 of 11" approach to criteria. But the pulp age covers at least 60 years of entertainment fiction in an ever widening span of genres, so I think it's next to impossible to define pulp in anything other than loose terms. Because sometime soon, probably even tonight, a new face to the PulpRev is going to discover a new story by a pulp writer no one currently has on their radar, and it will ignite new ideas on what pulp writing can be. As long as PulpRev focuses on what stories can be as opposed to must be, it will keep growing. And the more critics like Grim it encounters, the healthier it will be.

Misha Burnett on Horror

Over on the Castalia House blog, Misha Burnett left this comment about horror on an article discussing the differences between Stephen King and A. Merritt:

The main problem that I see with Stephen King in particular and modern horror in general is an inability to write a Good that deserves to conquer Evil. 

The modern horror protagonist is, at best, less bad than the monsters. In the more splatterpunk side of the genre, the protagonist is not even that–he’s just the one who ends up with the bigger gun at the end of the day. 

This is not to say that a horror hero must be a saint, but simply that the things for which the hero is fighting–the security of his home and family, the safety of the population in general, or even just his own life–should be acknowledged to be not just his own preferences, but objectively worthwhile. 

Moral relativism nerfs horror. If Joe is trying to stay alive and Blargdor is trying to kill him, the author should take a stand and say, “Joe is right to want to live and Blardor is wrong to want to kill him.” 

Instead, modern horror writers rely on increasingly gruesome depictions of violence and cruelty to try to awaken the reader’s sense of moral outrage. 

It is from that sense of moral outrage that the horror genre gets its power. A hurricane can kill people and destroy property on a great scale, but a hurricane is not a monster. (Granted, you can write a ripping yarn about people trapped in the path of a hurricane and struggling to survive, but it’s not horror.) 

To be monstrous, the antagonist must be not merely hazardous, but also wrong. Wrong in an objective sense–Something That Should Not Be. 

It is in the deliberate fostering of a sense of injustice that a writer invokes true horror. 

Killing a monster has to more than personal survival, it must be in itself a morally positive act. 

Injustice, however, requires an objective standard of justice to be measured against, and that is something that few modern horror writers are willing to portray.

50 YEARS OF LUPIN III: An Introduction to the Cast

Counterclockwise from the top:
Goemon Ishikawa XIII, Daisuke Jigen, Lupin III,
Fujiko Mine, and Inspector Zenigata

Fifty years ago, manga artist Monkey Punch drew up the first issue of what was intended to be a short series to last a couple years. After reading fifteen of Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin stories, Monkey Punch decided to try his hand at his own gentleman thief, updated to the sensibilities of the 1960s, of course. Little did he know that his thief, Lupin III, would become legendary, the animation equivalent of the James Bond franchise that would influence the likes of Disney, PIXAR, DC, and even live-action moviemakers around the world. Whether known as Lupin III, Rupan, Edgar de la Cambriole, or simply The Wolf, the adventures of this gentlemanly scoundrel and his gang have entertained millions, continuing to this day.

Now fifty years worth of adventures makes getting started a daunting question. After all, fifty years of Star Trek has given birth to a tangled mess of a future history spread over countless TV series and movies. However, Lupin III is closer to James Bond in that each individual episode is a stand-alone. After evolving from his start as a Tom and Jerry meets MAD Magazine and Playboy comedic thief into the star of his first TV series, Lupin III–and his gang– have remained essentially unchanged over the years, with different directors emphasizing different aspects of the characters. The basic template, though, remains the same. While Lupin III and his gang are in a city on a heist of their own, they get swept up into the plans of another gang of crooks searching for another treasure. Foiling those crooks requires dodging the law, beating the crooks to the treasure, helping innocents harmed along the way, and utterly ruining the rival’s criminal empire.

Lupin III is (allegedly) the grandson of the famed gentleman thief Arsène Lupin. Sharing the same love of life, adventure, and filthy lucre as his ancestor, Lupin III travels the globe, stealing from the rich. His clownish exterior hides his impressive skills in disguise, observation, pickpocketing, scheming, and gadgetry. It also lets his indulge in occasional fits of lechery, usually aimed at Fujiko, but as a gentleman thief, he doesn’t indulge before the girl shows interest. His façade drops whenever things start to get serious. And if you ever see his trademark smirk, prepare to watch everything you ever worked for crumble around you in ruins.

His gang include Daisuke Jigen, a gruff gunslinger who acts as Lupin’s right hand man and occasional voice of reason, and Goemon Ishikawa XII, a ronin descendant of the legendary thief Goemon Ishikawa, whose samurai skills and honor are second to none. While Jigen is ever-present, usually acting as the gang’s getaway driver in the insane car chases that the series is known for, Goemon comes and goes as he pleases.

Occasional accomplice Fujiko Mine serves as helper or hindrance depending on her whims. An ascended extra, she’s not just drawn that way, she truly is a bad girl, with thievery skills almost to rival Lupin’s. Like many a contemporary heroine from her time, she uses sex appeal and femininity to go where Lupin cannot. Fujiko always plays hard to get, drawing out a mark’s interest for as long as she can manage before stealing and stealing away. Usually in town for a different heist than Lupin’s, Fujiko is inevitably drawn into Lupin’s adventures, usually over the formal protests of Jigen. A master schemer with a distressing habit of getting herself caught, it’s not always clear if her plans fell apart or depended on manipulating Lupin’s assistance. Lupin has a long time flirtation with her. Like many aspects of the series, Fujiko’s hair color, measurements, aversion to clothing, and manipulations tend to shift from director to director, with her portrayal occasionally crossing the line from risqué into pornographic. Interestingly enough, most of the young women serving as Lupin’s love interests tend to be modest and wholesome, unlike his favorite adventuress.

Rounding out the cast is Inspector Zenigata, an international policeman serving as foil and rival to Lupin. Like many in the cast, he is a descendant of a famous ancestor: Heiji Zenigata, the coin-throwing detective of the Edo period. Zenigata, or “Pops” to Lupin, is the only policeman who can manage to occasionally arrest the master thief. At his best, Zenigata is the only true equal to Lupin’s skills, but he does get Flanderized to foolishness often. He is well respected in law enforcement, as his arrest record is exemplary. After all, someone’s got to arrest the crooks Lupin destroys at the end of every adventure. To help facilitate this, a gentleman’s agreement exists between the cop and the crook. There will be no guns used in their eternal chase, just tricks against traps. The two men have even worked together to bring down greater threats. But beware, the quickest way for a criminal to summon Lupin’s wrath is to harm Pops.

Add a unique treasure, an exotic locale, and a rival gang to the mix, and, like the dime-novels that inspired Lupin III, the recipe for a new adventure is complete. If a viewer needs a reminder of who the characters are and what they do in the gang, the opening animations for many of the TV series and movies provide a quick introduction to each character and their role in the upcoming heist.

Over the next few weeks leading up to the 50th anniversary, I’ll take a look at some of the standouts of Lupin III’s long career, from his recent marriage to The Fuma Conpiracy and his very first adventure in the comics. I’ll even take a look at the oddity that is The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. But if you want to test the waters, Cartoon Network’s Toonami is currently showing the forth Lupin III TV series, and, as always, Crunchyroll hosts an extensive selection of Lupin III TV episodes and movies available for streaming.

An Interview With Light Novel Author SOW

Youtuber The Anime Man interviews SOW, author of The Combat Baker and his Automaton Waitress, about his series and the demands of the light novel audience. Not only are light novels the grandchildren of the pulps, they thrived when the otaku-ized anime market collapsed and are poised to take over the YA market in the same way manga crowded out graphic novels in the bookstores.

QuQu: The Ideological Conquest of Science Fiction Literature

The 1950s Publishing Boom in Science Fiction

Amid the Age of Despair, the fall of the pulps, and the Futurian revolt is evidence of a boom in science fiction publishing.

One genre that is actually increasing in strength [in 1951] is Science Fiction. In 1946 it occupied only 3% of the market, but every year since then has seen a rise in its percentage, and in 1951 it reaches its highest level yet. In part this was due to the perception– still regrettably widespread– that the pulps were somehow the province of science fiction– that they belonged there rather in the slicks, so that those interested in writing science fiction perforce had to write for the pulps. This, despite the historically low performance of the genre in the medium and despite the presence of Avon Science Fiction Reader, Galaxy, Imagination, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Other Worlds, and other science fiction digests. In part it was due to the success of two major science fiction anthologies, The Best of Science Fiction and Adventures in Time and Space, both 1946, which spurred publisher interest in science fiction.

Nevins, Jess. The Pulps: A Yearly Guide (pp. 173-174).  . Kindle Edition.

So how does this observation fit with previous claims of readership stagnancy?

First, the metric used here is number of titles published and percent of the pulp catalog occupied by the genre, not sales. The 1950s was a time of flux for the short fiction market. Several pulp companies, most notably Street & Smith, cashed out of the pulps entirely, contracting the number of titles published. What few titles survived were transitioning to the digest format, which also removed them from this pulp metric

Second, this boom in titles was driven by publishers, not the market. Science fiction histories have mentioned that the science fiction readership for pulps and digests combined through this period was estimated at a flat half-million readers (a claim I am continuing to source). Perhaps the clearest evidence that this boom did not lead to increased sales is that this is the time when first wave of Campbellian writers--to include Isaac Asimov himself--were departing for more lucrative genres. The increase in titles did not translate into an increase in writers' pay. This would continue well into the Golden Age, when editors noticed that the same handful of names were on the covers of everyone's magazine.

This would not be the first time publishers chased a trend only to be disappointed. Nor was it the first or the last time publishers produced what they thought people should read as opposed to what readers wanted, whether it was Hugo Gernsback's attempts to channel an interest in science into an interest in his science magazines, John Campbell's amputation of science fiction from its Gothic roots, or Patrick Nielsen-Hayden's (alleged) assertion that there are too many libertarians in science fiction. (Another common assertion needing sourcing, although there's enough hearsay to support it.)

But what of the fiction that inspired this transparent attempt to capitalize on trends? Adventures in Time and Space is a book of the Campbelline Revolution, with only a handful of works that predate Campbell's editorship. The Best of Science Fiction shares a heavy leavening of Campelline works, but reaches back into the pulp era, the dime-novel era, past Arthur Conan Doyle and H. G. Wells to Edgar Allan Poe. Combined, the two create a picture of the canon of the Campbelline branch of science fiction. Absent from both anthologies are works from Weird Tales, Amazing, or the general adventure pulps that were published after Astounding's founding.

It is on the prestige of these two anthologies that Campbell's strange and (internationally shunned) branch of science fiction became the dominant one of American science fiction, despite Weird Tales selling just as well and Amazing setting circulation records yet to be matched. And publishers tried to chase the prestige. However, it is clear that the increased supply did not translate into increased demand.