Paint Worship

There's been much that has happened over the past five months, 2020 has been an insane year so far, and it doesn't seem poised to peak anytime soon. The '20s are not fooling around. Don't expect normality to return anytime soon.

One of the things that has radically shifted in recent times is the trust people have in corporations. It is now nearly nonexistent, at least among the general public. However, many consumers still put brands created by said corporations on a pedestal, and refuse to abandon them for greener pastures. They hate and love them at the same time, but only the normal people have learned to walk away. It's a bit of a conundrum, but I believe people are beginning to understand this ridiculous dichotomy of simultaneously trusting and being suspicious of corporations.

There is more to art than what corporate stamp is put on the box. We all know this, but it is beginning to settle in as an inescapable reality for the fringe among us.

As one example, there was a recent viral video of a "lost" anime from back in the 1980s that found its way onto social media. It wasn't a real anime, but an opening and endings credit sequence designed by one man over an eight year period. He matched aesthetics, music, and artstyle, perfectly with what was made during the era, and at the same time created something wholly original that did not come out during the period. He also constructed some commercials that would have aired at the time, too. In other words, he created exactly what a lot of weebs had been complaining for years. A return to tradition, done without any interference from suits.

However, the reveal of Kodai Senkaku Genocider was not quite as successful as it could and should have been. While anyone who saw it was impressed and wanted more, weebs as a whole did not so much bother as share it across social media. It's range was limited. Author Rawle Nyanzi speculates why that was in a recent blog post:

"This is something I’ve noticed quite a bit — content based on legacy brands and corporate product gets the most attention, while talented original work is largely ignored. Furthermore, this happens even when legacy brands drop the ball and many people online complain. 

"At first, I thought it was because original work wasn’t made with the same level of skill as corporate work, but this animation demonstrates a very high level of skill. The buzz just isn’t as big as it should be, with retweets only in the hundreds, while redraws of legacy brands are retweeted and shared to hell and back. 

"I have a guess as to why this occurs: the complainers don’t actually want something new. They just want their favorite old brand to come back."

What Mr. Nyanzi is saying is that there is a disorder at play here. A segment of weebs that say they actually want a return to this sort of thing just want the same brands over and over again. They don't want new things done in the same style as the old. They don't want tradition to carry on to new things: they just desire endless rehashes in the same corporate branding.

There is some truth to this. All one has to do is look online to see where the conversation lies in "geek" circles. It is either nostalgia, or endless obsession over irrelevant social issues. No one is discussing the actual stories.

It isn't as if the corporations don't share a blame in this pandering. Disney's recent takes on legacy brands have gotten showered in press, attention, and controversy. However nothing else in pop culture has gotten remotely the attention that they have. Even if they release divisive junk, they will still receive endless coverage while actual creators striving to make new things are ignored. Written a new space opera? Who cares, there's no Disney logo on the box or copyright from 1977. Have a new take on superheroes? There's no Marvel or DC branding, so who cares. Some people put more stock into image than in quality, and it is hurting modern art as a whole.

We can't escape this cycle of corporate worship instead of discussing actual art. It just won't end.

In a sense we have been trained to believe brand logos are a marker of quality for decades, despite recent history showing that this is a very wrong attitude to have. Still it persists unchallenged and unquestioned. Though, in some areas of the world, such as Japan, there is a reason for this loyalty. They still haven't quite fumbled the ball yet.

Their corporate structure pumps new things through the system so fast that audiences hardly have time to breathe before the next thing comes out. What this ends up creating is a culture of endless mush with some gold nuggets sprinkled inside. It's still better than how it works in the west, but it won't last forever.

Author Bradford Walker added in his two cents to this issue:

"Now, with a quarterly level of frequency promoting disposability and an emphasis on Muh Waifus to push merch and tie-in products (and get butts in seats for live events like concerts by the voice cast), while you do get big hits you also get a disdain for anything not current and scorn for anything older than 2000; very little has the lasting impact of Zeta Gundam, and certain genres and styles get favored due to extensive A/B testing via things like Shounen Jump's ranking system by the readership at the detriment of long-term overall cultural fertility. This has long-term implications and we'll see soon how bad this gets. 

"The tools to disrupt anime production are present, and one-man projects like Astartes and Otaking's Star Wars and Doctor Who short fan films are Proof of Concept that a determined creator can compete on quality. The issue, therefore, is the audience; they are long accustomed to the established way of doing things and find no reason to change away from that. 

"A large part of that reluctance does come from the fact that, to date, this corporate infrastructure actually works as intended for the benefit of the audience. If there is a flaw to be had here, it is a blind faith that this system performs good stewardship and cannot degenerate into mindlessly pleasing the most insistent (who become like Veruka Salt) or be gamed to produce desired outcomes- states that should be guarded against."

The long and short of it is that there is a system in place that rewards delivering reliable product that actually works, at least to an extent. Because of this atmosphere there isn't as much of a demand for this sort of retro idea like Genocider to gain traction. It has little to do with how good the product is, and more to do with the fact that consumers just aren't really thinking about what they're consuming. In a way it isn't quite so different as what is happening in the west.

However, there are a few questions that this Genocider project does raise, especially for those who have wondered why anime went off the track in the mid-00s. It shows a love of things that have been lost and cast away for no real reason. Sure, anime has recovered much of its missing mojo recently, but the question remains: how much was lost?

One glance at the video for Genocider brings up all sorts of questions. Why couldn't something like this get made now? For reference, this is the video in question:

The fact that this could be done by one man, even over a large time period is a bit of a gut punch. At this point you have to ask yourself that if one person could do this, why were teams and studios . . . not? This Tokusatsu style adventure drama was popular throughout the '70s, '80s, and '90s, even a bit into the early '00s, before it completely vanished. Perhaps the loss of the original wave of anime creators caused it, but that still doesn't explain the lack of tradition being passed down. Thankfully these sorts of animated Tokusatsu series never suffered through overrated and tired deconstructions like Mecha or Magical Girl did over the years, but it just sort of disappeared. You can say the audience no longer wanted it, but something doesn't suddenly vanish after 30+ years without outside interference.

Genocider adds a fresh wrinkle to this classic genre by having a large cast of varied characters of both sexes and varied ages that makes it quite different from something like Ronin Warriors, Bubbelegum Crisis, or Armored Police Metal Jack. It is clear that there is some interpersonal drama between this vast cast that would add quite a bit to the proceedings. Despite that it still feels congruent with the tradition that existed before. You get this impression from both the opening and ending themes, which also sound closer to Retrowave than they do songs that came out in the '80s or '90s. This is a long way to say that this is a great idea for a project that should be getting more attention from anime watchers than it is.

Even the artstyle and design takes influence from every decade before it from 90s style armor designs and action, '80s style direction and music, and '00s style character designs, it offers a best of all worlds approach while looking completely original. One could even theoretically create merchandise quite easily based on what has been created here by Defrost, the creator. There is a lot of potential in this property, money waiting to be made.

They don't make 'em like this anymore, but they still should. There is much left in that gas tank, but since the industry gets just as much disposable money from idols, moe, and porn merch, they don't really need to bother appealing to wider audiences.

But, hey, you might be saying. Things are better than ever! You have Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, and World Trigger, among others. Action series can still be good. Is that not enough for you?

There's nothing wrong with any of those series. I actually like those three in particular a good deal, for instance. The greater point here is that we don't need to be content with only new stuff or old stuff. We can have both. Industries should grow as they age, not contract. There should be more options over time, not less. So why aren't we allowed both of these things? We are we stuck with one or nothing?

This situation is reminiscent of the 32-bit generation of video game consoles. There was nothing stopping companies from expanding on what they did with 2D a generation before in addition to trying new things with 3D. We could have had both, but companies like Sony sabotaged 2D instead, and game journalists did nothing but tear into 2D games for being 2D games, and left the medium near death. It was buried and savaged so badly that it took two generation to return, and even then it wasn't quite what it once was. This whole event was unnecessary, and it has left 2D struggling to move in new directions since. All this because new creators have to build a new basement level as a support thanks to the old one being burned down long ago.

So, as a customer, why should I have to put with this behavior from a corporation that is no longer giving me what I want? Because some company made the decision for me without asking, I stopped getting what I wanted. I never asked them for this change, but it happened regardless. It is very reminiscent of why OldPub is dying, actually.

It's about time we stop letting them tell us what we are allowed and not allowed to have. We're in an age where we can have options for better things. We don't need to settle for less any longer.

My message to the creator of Kodai Senkaku Gencider, Defrost, would be to do what ONE did with his web series One Punch Man. Start with manga where you don't need to rely on a large team or investors. Create the series on your own, then have the companies come to you when you've made it great. This is a fantastic idea with plenty of future potential, so don't rely on fandom or corporations to make it success. Do it yourself. Attention will come eventually, as long as it offers what people are missing. The sad truth is that some people will only give it a second look if it has a corporate stamp on it, regardless of its quality.

The fact that he even needs corporate backing to give his idea any sort of "validity" is only true with a certain segment of fandom who will only buy things with the right paint job on it. Their obsessive focus on the color scheme has blinded them from the ability to see the engine underneath. How good a piece of art is goes beyond the corporate labeling on the box.

For instance, I trust anything that Sunrise put out back in their glory days. They had a quality staff and created some great properties in the '70s, '80s, '90s, and early '00s. It was hit after hit and classic after classic for such a long time that it would be hard to deny they were a quality company. They earned trust, and that put stock in their brand that they knew what they were doing. If I picked up a Sunrise series from that era, it was guaranteed to be worth my time.

But eventually the staff began to move on or retire, and their replacements just didn't have the same spark the old guys had. They stopped creating what the wider audience wanted. Sunrise's track record became so spotty in the second half of the '00s and into the '10s that I no longer look at the Sunrise name as a marker of quality. Just because the series has their name doesn't mean I trust it will be quality any longer. That ship has sailed. As it should--if you aren't making quality then your brand image should suffer for that. No one should be buying it based on past successes or for fandom clout.

It works the other way, too. If an upstart studio like MAPPA starts creating quality, even with ex-Madhouse staff at the helm, people will begin to trust them if they grow a quality library. After making a string of quality hits such as Kids on the Slope, Hajime no Ippo: Rising, Terror in Resonance, Garo, Rage of Bahamut, Ushio & Tora, Vanishing Line, Banana Fish, Dororo, and the recent hit Dorohedoro, they have earned a lot of trust. They aren't always perfect, but you know you're getting something of quality if you see the MAPPA studio brand.

MAPPA has earned the trust they get.

But that won't last forever. When they slip, for whatever reason, and begin making subpar material, customers will instead find something else they want instead. Which they should.

On the flip-side we have people worshiping a space opera franchise that has largely been trash since the 1990s, rewarding companies for incessant and inferior remakes of what they did decades ago, and celebrating a dying comic industry for being unable to grow in over 30 years. Things have stagnated so much that it seems strange that there are those so resistant to trying anything new, even if it means going back to tradition. We can at least thank Japan for not quite being at that level just yet.

That won't always be the case. If there is one thing the modern world is good at doing that would be decaying. It's only a matter of time.

Pop culture has moved from being a celebration of things that unite us into being the focus of celebration itself. People will read a Marvel comic and assume it is good because they read a good run of Spiderman 25 years ago that made them feel warm, not being able to objectively assess it as lacking the quality and polish of what the brand once put out. It doesn't matter if none of the same people who made said Spiderman comic good are even still at the company--it has the brand name so it will be bought over anything new. This blind worship overrides all logic and instead becomes a religion for lost youth and better days.

At that point, you're worshiping paint. You're not even doing it well, since you're avoiding looking at the faded colors and instead applying a new coat with cheap floor paint. It's no longer about stories or imagination, or what is under the hood. Heck, it's not even about mindless merchandise hoarding anymore. It's about redirecting your sense of religious self towards a corporate logo as if it were a god. Blindly consuming everything with brand name and assessing it has to be good because of the moniker on the box is how you get cultish behavior. Hence, the pop cult that currently surrounds us today.

The loss of objective assessment is why we have so many people still putting out youtube videos on a bad space movie nearing three years old, both asserting how brilliant it was for not being on brand and chasing audiences away, and the other still arguing its poor, subversive quality. At no point do either one of these camps think to watch or read anything outside of the brand instead. The logo puts it above all that other junk--don't ask why, it just does. The brand is everything, it is life, love, and existence itself.

So pop culture rots away, new creators are unable to create, and lazy companies still get all the attention for things that were made decade ago. Everyone who is sane loses while cultists are driven deeper into obsession.

And no, it wasn't always like that. Your ancestors didn't worship brands like we do. They would move on to new things. Why can't newer generations?

The influential magazine Weird Tales ended, and they moved on. Some fanatics would try to revive the moniker many times over the decades, despite no one involved having anything to do with its original success. However, these new attempts would always bomb. Its time had passed and the audience moved on to new things, as they should.

If that happened today we would all keep buying the issues, half saying how horrible the original run was and the other half ranting about how much the new stuff is inferior to the old. But if a new magazine came out that was as good as Weird Tales was at its peak these same camps would ignore it because it does not have brand or nostalgia on its side, and the brand is everything, not quality. Quality is irrelevant. This is how you get a mess like the one pop culture is in now. No one can move on from their youth.

Eventually paint worship is going to have to disappear, and we're going to learn to put things where they belong. Storytelling is about the story, not the brand name on the box. Creating quality should be enough without needing the backing of a billion dollar corporation that commands unearned clout from the work of dead generations. It's about the story, and we would do well to remember that. Brands mean nothing without quality.

So while the '20s have started out quite insane there is a silver-lining in that it is a start for something new to come along. We can only hope it will be better than where we're at, and will allow us to move beyond worshiping paint into something more normal once again.

Keep creating, no matter what they say.

Hey, it can only go up from here.

Forget the Brand and enjoy the stories!