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Bonus Podcast (with Transcript): 2022 July: Slice-of-Life and Iyashikei
🕑 Added 2022-07-22 02:10:15 +0000 UTCDee, Alex, and Meru are back to talk about the world of cozy and comforting shows: what defines the genre, the highs, and the lows.
Editor's Note: This podcast was recorded before Meru changed their name and pronouns, hence the discrepancy between their speaker label and the dialog.
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DEE: In honor of that one Twitter person, I’ll start with this. [Breaks into song to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”] Iiiit’s super AniFem analysis inside your ear buds!
[Theme song]
DEE: Hello and welcome to Patronizing AF, the Anime Feminist bonus podcast for patrons! I’ve got good energy today! I’m Dee, one of the managing editors, and I’m on Twitter @joseinextdoor.
With me today are my fellow AniFem staffers Mercedez and Alex. If you would like to introduce yourselves…
MERU: My name’s Mercedez, and today I am powered by blueberries, strawberries and raspberries! [Chuckles] I’ve got a lot of energy—
DEE: [crosstalk] Part of your balanced breakfast!
MERU: Yeah, I’ve got a lot of good energy, too. You can find me on Twitter @pixelatedlenses, where I am talking about being a light novel editor, being an anime reviewer, and doing a little bit of everything.
ALEX: That’s lovely. What am I powered by? Let me think. My name is Alex. I’m also a contributions editor here at AniFem and also Anime Herald, various other places around the place. You can find me on Twitter @TheAfictionado, where I post links to my various research and blog posts and essays and fun stuff.
And I am powered by… toast. Just been living a carb-heavy life these past few days, I’m going to admit. [Chuckles]
DEE: Clean, unbuttered toast. [Chuckles]
ALEX: Well, peanut butter toast, so, you know, eating protein, but it’s not as colorful as Mercedez’s beautiful picnic of berries.
MERU: Are we doing crunchy or smooth?
ALEX: Crunchy. Extra crunchy.
MERU: The only peanut butter that ever exists: crunchy.
[Chuckling]
ALEX: So today we are discussing breakfast food discourse. [Chuckles]
DEE: Yes, this will be the breakfast food episode of the bonus podcast. No, today—although it does fit into our theme—we will be discussing slice-of-lifes/iyashikei because there’s a lot of crossover between those two. For folks at home who have never heard the term iyashikei, it means, like, soothing or healing anime. Often the terms get used interchangeably. I would argue they are not exactly the same thing, but you do tend to see them with one another because a lot of the time slice-of-life shows tend to be fairly chill.
So, my question for y’all… Coming into this one, I wanted to ask you some questions because there have been vigorous discourses about this, which I always find fun—not in a serious way—about what the definition of… what does slice-of-life mean to you? What shows… what would count as a slice-of-life?
MERU: Oh, that’s a good one! You want to go first, Alex?
ALEX: [Chuckles] Well, it is a good question—
MERU: [Chuckles]
ALEX: [Chuckles] Genuinely, it’s a good question, and it’s a discussion I’ve been kind of curious and eager to have, especially because slice-of-life, as we’re talking about it, is not really a genre that exists outside of anime, at least not that I have encountered. Certainly, there have been jokes around the internet that, for example… Oh my goodness, I’ve forgotten its name. It’s that American sitcom cartoon where they’re talking about propane and propane accessories.
DEE: Oh, King of the Hill.
MERU: King of the Hill.
ALEX: Thank you.
MERU: [Laughs]
DEE: Now it’s even.
ALEX: I’ve seen that defined as an American slice-of-life anime. Now, I have not watched that show, so I cannot verify, but… [Chuckles] Certainly—
MERU: Seinfeld is like a slice-of-life live action.
ALEX: Yeah. So there’s certainly an argument to be made about how sitcoms fit slice-of-life, but I don’t know that that’s quite… I don’t know that that quite sits with me, because to me sitcoms… I mean, they’re comedies, which, as we kinda talked about last episode, they rely on a tension and release. Perhaps secondhand embarrassment is involved, perhaps shenanigans are involved, in a way that you don’t often get that emphasis in what I might call a slice-of-life anime. Comedy is often an element as part of the chill-out kind of vibe, but it’s difficult to pin down, which is not very useful of me as the first person to try to answer this question.
DEE: [Chuckles]
ALEX: But I don’t know. It’s something that I find very… I enjoy that it exists and I’m fascinated that it’s a niche that sort of hasn’t been filled in other genres and mediums. So I guess I would define it, you know, tenuously: it is this genre that exists that often focuses on young people doing hobbies, not in the intense, goal-oriented way you might see in a sports anime, but more focused on just growth and detail and atmosphere and a chill tone.
Maybe it’s better defined by not necessarily what happens in it but the effect that it intends to have on its audience. Maybe let’s start with something like that.
DEE: Well, and I’ll say I think you’re describing iyashikei, because iyashikei is… The concept of an iyashikei, of a healing genre, is, again, like you said, the impact it has on the audience. And again, I think a lot of slice-of-lifes do have that sort of soothing, healing vibe to them.
But I don’t think they have to, because—I mean, I haven’t seen all of Super Cub, but I read Mercedez’s article about it and it sounds like Super Cub was quite heavy at times, but I also think it was very much a slice-of-life in terms of the day-to-day activities of very grounded, quote-unquote “ordinary” people going about their lives without a set goal or end point because they’re just living their existence. So it’s not like there’s… The finale… by its nature, by slice-of-life, it could go on forever or you just stop because you’re just telling a character’s story, right? It’s just living life.
MERU: Well, boy howdy, Dee, am I glad you brought up Super Cub, because yes, it is a part of my bullet points! [Chuckles]
DEE: Hell yeah! I knew it would be.
MERU: Yeah, so, Super Cub is actually kind of an interesting example because it is a mix of iyashikei and slice-of-life. It does have that heavy emotive that you’re talking about. But if I’m going purely as the mother genre slice-of-life… Which, I will say, North American and Western media does have slice-of-life; it just tends to be more defined by melodramatics and by being about drama than… Yeah, because “slice of life” is a term that came about in the early 1900s, so it is a storied term, as fraught as that can be to say with anything dealing with the West, but it is different in anime.
But if I go with purely just slice-of-life, for me it is that appeal to naturalism or nature itself. It is often set in the countryside. It’s kind of set in this halcyon, rustic place that exists but doesn’t exist exactly like that. I think of slice-of-life, especially now, as being particularly female without appealing to a female or feminine audience.
DEE: Or maybe appealing to but not targeted at, necessarily.
MERU: Yes, yeah. Appealing to feminine and… I should say, appealing to non-male viewers but aimed at a largely cis male audience. When I think of the setting, it’s like the Japanese countryside or sometimes it’s in these untreaded futuristic realms. The one that comes to mind is another crossover iyashikei slice-of-life; that is Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, which is coming out in English!
DEE: We’re getting a translation of it. Yeah, I’m kind of excited for that one. That actually sort of… Keep going, and then that does roll into my second question here.
MERU: Or you can have it on other planets like Aria, which takes place on a futuristic version of Mars. But it is to me best defined—slice-of-life—as "making the mundane fantastic by elevating everyday relationships, actions, and moments into almost magical fantasy." So, the action of engaging with nature, taking a walk, becomes this kind of big moment when taking a walk is something that is very mundane. That’s kind of what I see as that interplay of really cherishing those moments.
DEE: So, not necessarily— I think I see what you’re saying. I think that’s a really interesting description. Not necessarily heightening in the way a comedy does or in the way a melodrama does, where it takes it to 11, but more focusing in on that grounded moment and the importance of it. Does that… Is that…
MERU: [crosstalk] Yes.
DEE: Am I getting the read from it? Okay, yeah.
MERU: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.
DEE: Yeah, I think that’s a really good way to word it. Because to me, that’s one of the big differences between a slice-of-life versus a sitcom or a soap or a drama of some kind, is: those are also about day-to-day life but there’s that element of heightening it into the realm of absurdity, or like “This is what it feels like on the inside.” And slice-of-life does that to a point, but it is more focused on the quiet moments rather than the big, dramatic ones, yeah?
MERU: Yeah. Yeah.
DEE: Okay. So, here’s my second question, because I think those are good definitions that we’ve talked about here and I think we’ve got a pretty good read on the genre.
Alex, did what Mercedez say click with you as well?
ALEX: Yeah, that sounds totally… And in fact, I would even add, yeah, maybe to expand my definition a bit, it’s about moving where the stakes are located in a narrative. So, like you say, yeah, soap operas are totally slice-of-life in a way, but the lives we are looking at—not the Days of Our Lives, but, you know…
[Laughter]
ALEX: [Obscured by laughter] in the hourglass.
[Laughter]
MERU: [Coughs] I’m sorry.
ALEX: Mercedez is totally right, yeah. It’s about really shifting the emphasis to really mundane things and making them feel special, and yeah, it’s about relocating the stakes to those very mundane, personal but meaningful things. I think that’s, yeah, a good jumping-off point.
MERU: You can absolutely read my article on Super Cub for some good references.
DEE: Absolutely. We will link to that in the transcript, for sure. And then, Alex, I think that fits in with what you were saying, where to you a lot of hobby anime fit into slice-of-life, which is also heightening these sort of mundane club activities into that sort of… Some anime over-romanticize it, I would argue, but the importance of those little moments of just day to day, living your life. I think Hyouka has some moments like that, that really hit that sense of just existing in the moment as a high schooler.
So, my follow-up question to that is: can a slice-of-life have fantastical elements in it or does it, by its definition, have to be grounded in the real world?
MERU: I think it can have fantastical elements and still be grounded in a very human, relatable experience. And this is actually where Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou comes in, because it has science fiction fantasy at the core but it’s heavily grounded in a very relatable experience, a very relatable series of experiences.
ALEX: Yeah, I think, in fact, honestly, fantasy but kind of rejigged so it has more of a slice-of-life tone is honestly one of my favorite genres. Because, again, it’s not something you see super commonly in American and broader English-language media.
So I’m thinking of things like Flying Witch, which is not like “She’s going to a magical school and she’s learning to be magical! And let’s make an adventure!” It’s like “No, no. She’s learning magic, but it’s just about what she’s cooking and the relationship she’s forming with this family she’s moved in with, and she’s found a screaming, living plant in the backyard.”
DEE: [Laughs]
MERU: The mandrake! The mandrake!
ALEX: [Audio cuts out] episode. It’s so funny. But yeah, it’s just taking things that would normally have great, fantastical, epic stakes and, yeah, making it just very character driven and interesting. Restaurant to Another World is, of course, another fantastic example.
MERU: I mean, that’s what Studio Ghibli movies are. Never in my life have I gone and found that a boy was a river, but you can relate to when Chihiro cries and eats food and it helps her feel grounded.
DEE: Yeah, I think Ghibli movies have moments of slice-of-life in them that helps ground the story. I do think they have large, overarching narratives where a character has a goal and a purpose and they complete that purpose or get to that point with their character. But there’s scenes in Spirited Away of her life in the bathhouse, and this is what day-to-day work is like in this fantastical realm. And there’s moments in Howl’s Moving Castle where there’s—
MERU: I was just about to say Howl’s.
DEE: Yeah, there’s bits of that where it’s like “This is the day-to-day life of this traveling wizard and how he helps, interacts with the people in towns,” or Sophie’s day in a life cleaning up the house, that kind of thing. So, I do agree there are elements of that in Ghibli movies. I don’t think I would quite categorize them as that, but… Maybe some of them. Whisper of the Heart is pretty close to a slice-of-life.
MERU: Whisper of the Heart… I would say “Kiki’s Journey”… Not “Kiki’s Journey,” oh my God. Kiki’s Delivery Service!
DEE: There we go.
MERU: Kiki’s Delivery Service is actually one I would say is actually a slice-of-life completely because her goal is just, like: continue to exist. She does have the goal she’s going for, to become a witch and grow into our own, but really, the goal at the end is: just continue to grow and exist. And that’s the big one that I think of, like “Ah, that’s slice-of-life.” There’s bread.
DEE: [Chuckles]
MERU: There’s just these vignettes of Kiki just existing. There’s moments of… You know, she does the thing with the balloon and saves Anime Griffin McElroy.
[Chuckling]
MERU: But that’s by and large… Yeah, that’s a good one that’s slice-of-life. I’ll push for that.
DEE: Okay, so now I have to confess to you, God, and everyone that I’ve never actually seen Kiki’s Delivery Service.
MERU: Okay. Well, patreons, you know what to do.
DEE: [Laughs]
ALEX: That’s okay, that’s okay. You know, just because they’re classics, I don’t think there’s a canon that everyone is required to watch.
DEE: Oh, I badly want to! Hey, I badly want to! It’s one of my friend’s favorite Ghibli movies. It’s just, for whatever reason, I’ve never been in a situation where somebody had a copy and we watched it together. So it’s not like I don’t want to; it’s just, for whatever reason, I have never been in a situation where I have been able to watch that film. And now it’s on HBO and I have no excuse, but…
MERU: It’s a very Dee-core movie. I think you would really like… There’s a character in there that I think you would really like.
DEE: Oh, I’m a sucker for Miyazaki, and you had me at Anime Griffin McElroy.
MERU: This child looks like Anime Griffin McElroy. He looks like he’s gonna stick an entire anime banana in his mouth.
[Laughter]
DEE: He’s gonna eat it bad. Sorry, we’re very [obscured by crosstalk]. [Chuckles]
ALEX: The realm of the grotesquerie, I would argue, takes us out of slice-of-life. Um…
DEE: [Chuckles] Yes. At that point, we are no longer in the slice-of-life. But no, I see what you’re saying about it. So, almost turning the fantastical into the mundane, but still coming at that sense of wonder that a slice-of-life has.
I’m actually really glad you brought up Flying Witch because—here’s another confession for the podcast—I had—
MERU: Dee, don’t. [Chuckles]
DEE: No, no, this one’s fine! No, I’ve seen Flying Witch. I’ve seen Flying Witch.
[Laughter]
DEE: No, no, no. I had zero—I would say maybe 1%—but pretty much zero interest in slice-of-life and iyashikei-style stories for the longest time. I didn’t necessarily have anything against them. Some of them I did because some of them lean into that infantilized moe bullshit that I cannot stand.
MERU: Fair.
DEE: But a lot of it was just [that] I just wasn’t interested. I just found it boring and so I didn’t watch ‘em. And the summer of Flying Witch and Tanaka-kun Is Always Listless—which is a very chill comedy that has some elements of slice-of-life but is probably more like a sitcom—I watched Flying Witch. And that was the summer of 2016, so I was stressed out for a lot of political-related reasons. But I watched Flying Witch, and there’s the episode that just… it spends the entire episode following the cat around town. And then—
MERU: Chito!
DEE: Yeah. And absolutely nothing happens, and I was like, “That was great.” And it was like a light bulb went on in my head, and I was like, “Oh, I get it. I get the appeal of iyashikei and slice-of-life now. This is terrific!” But I think I needed that fantastical element. I needed something outside of the familiar to make it something that I would enjoy watching, because if it’s too close to my day-to-day life, I’m like, “Well, I can just live my day-to-day life. I don’t need to see it on screen.”
MERU: And I’ll fully admit that I actually think that’s a large part why slice-of-life is really popular outside of Japan, because… And I think for your young anime fan who has never visited Japan and really doesn’t have a concept of the country as a place that people live in versus a place that exists and has this very sculpted image, I would say—because I was certainly that person before I lived in Japan—there is this kind of delightfulness in slice-of-life that… the mundanity but the magic of a roadside vegetable stand or watching—
DEE: Immersing yourself in another culture without having to spend the money that you need to actually buy the plane ticket, yeah.
MERU: Right. And it’s why moments like a character opening a rice cooker and the steam wafting out (yes, I am referencing Super Cub)… it’s kind of magical because it’s all of these experiences that you can’t cultivate necessarily, maybe, in your own backyard but you can through a show, and it kind of heightens this other place that, like you said, you may not be able to go to because money. [Chuckles]
ALEX: Or indeed… Saw a lot of people— Because Laid-Back Camp season 2 dropped kind of middle of the pandemic quarantine kind of thing, and it gave me just dreadful travel envy. I was like, “Ah, I want to go to a mountain.” I don’t want to camp. I dislike camping. I am in a log cabin at the very least. I need walls to enjoy a holiday. But you know, so, hey, living vicariously through these kids, because it works.
That and Super Cub and, indeed, Flying Witch as well, they kind of, officially or unofficially, have these sort of tourism tie-ins where they are making this landscape look so beautiful and inviting. They’re saying, “Come here! Come and live this life! Or if you can’t, experience this beauty through this medium. We’ve very carefully crafted and recreated the atmosphere and the landscape of this place to make you fall in love with it from afar.”
DEE: Well, and one of the reasons you see shows like that on TV is because tourism bureaus in Japan will help fund them, because it encourages people to go on anime pilgrimages to these locations.
MERU: I was gonna say… Let’s Make a Mug? That fully… I mean, people probably knew of Tajimi City before, but the interesting thing about that was (1) it was shorts but (2) they had segments where the voice actresses went around this real-life city and did the things that the girls in the anime did, and that is advertising for Tajimi City!
DEE: Yup.
ALEX: It’s a travel show. [Chuckles]
MERU: Even I was like, “You know what? I think I want to go make some pottery. Let’s Make a Mug Too with Mercedez!”
[Chuckling]
MERU: And it kind of works. I’m not even gonna lie. It does kind of work. I mean, Super Cub had me wanting to get a motorcycle.
ALEX: [Chuckles]
MERU: It’s effective. [Chuckles]
DEE: Yeah, it was a very effective advertisement for motor… [trails off chuckling]
ALEX: And heck, [goes] to show just because a show really wants you to buy something doesn’t mean it can't also be a meaningful story as well as that.
DEE: Hey, I’m a Pokémon fan. It’s all good.
ALEX: [Laughs]
MERU: That does bring up the question: what is Flying Witch trying to potentially sell me? Either Aomori or magic powers. [Chuckles]
ALEX: I would take both.
[Chuckling]
ALEX: I would take the magic powers. I would also take a nice trip through that region. It looks very nice. [Chuckles]
MERU: Aomori is a really beautiful part of Japan. They have good apples.
ALEX: Mm.
MERU: And black garlic.
DEE: [crosstalk] Noted. But yeah, that is part of the reason why they keep getting made: is because they do get— And obviously, like you said, they… I think they are still neat shows, but they have an audience, and something you pointed out is there’s not a ton of English-language media that scratches that itch of “I just want to chill out and sort of live this other life but without necessarily the stakes of high drama and tension.” That relaxation factor.
That’s not necessarily something you find in… I know there are indie comics and stuff, and hey! Folks at home, if you know of some good English-language or other-language, non-Japanese-language slice-of-life type stories that we should know about and that you think the audience would enjoy, by all means, you should throw those out into the comments so folks can know about ‘em.
ALEX: For sure, for sure.
DEE: But I do think it is definitely one of those things that you don’t necessarily find a lot of. So, in the same way that I was drawn so hard to shoujo when I was younger, because there wasn’t… I mean, this has gotten a lot better in recent years in English-speaking media, but there wasn’t a lot of lady-led, female protagonist stuff that wasn’t like high school soap operas basically. So, that action-adventure scratched that itch, and so I think iyashikei and slice-of-life has that same appeal of a thing that people maybe didn’t even know they wanted and they saw it and went, “Oh shit! I love this actually.”
And also, life is stressful and sometimes it’s nice to just turn on a show about sweet boys running a cafe. That was a nudge to Yotsuiro Biyori, a criminally underappreciated slice-of-life series.
MERU: And it’s funny you say life is stressful because iyashikei came out of a huge series of stress in Japan. It came about in the 1990s because of the Hanshin earthquake and the gas attacks. This genre came out of trauma. So, it literally… The healing is kind of this multilevel thing of “Life is pain. Let’s create something that’s not.” So, I think that’s the appeal, for sure. It kind of takes away the sting of things. I mean, that’s why Flying Witch is so good. That’s why all the stuff in that subgenre is so good!
DEE: So I’m gonna end this on a little bit more of a hardball because this is a feminist podcast. Do you think there is a line in slice-of-lifes where we move from that sense of "living vicariously" into "voyeurism," and where is that line, and why is it Akebi’s School Uniform?
ALEX: [Chuckles unevenly as if astounded]
DEE: [Laughs]
MERU: Okay, as someone who reviewed that show, I’m actually gon’ push back against that, though.
DEE: That’s fair. It was the first title that came to mind, but no, feel free to push back.
MERU: Okay, so, as we all know, on Akebi’s School Uniform was very fixated on teenage girl feet for a hot second.
DEE: Mm-hm.
MERU: But I think it’s kind of an interesting… And I don’t think it actually balances it well initially, and from what I understand the source material is much more lewd. But I think it poses that problem of: at base it’s a really good show, but when it starts to sexualize characters, it yanks you back into the real world of “Oh, sometimes people just really suck about teenage autonomy.” And I think it’s the case of… By and large, like 99% of it is really good. It’s just this girl who really likes a school uniform. But then that 1% does kick in.
And I think the line that iyashikei and slice-of-life as an entire genre have to walk is letting the characters it creates have the autonomy that they need and actually not delving into the grotesqueness of the real world. I would like to see more worlds where young—in this case, we can assume everyone in Akebi is cis—where young cis women are allowed to have physical autonomy, and they’re not, in that show a lot of the time, initially.
Whereas in—and I’m sorry to go back to Super Cub—but whereas in Super Cub, they’re never [sexualized]. They’re just weird, awkward teenage kids who are really fixated on bikes. And that is much more true to what real teenagers are like. Or if we want a recent slice-of-life, I would say that Turning Red is certainly a good candidate for a Western animation that contains a lot of slice-of-life elements but doesn’t sexualize the kids.
ALEX: Mm-hm. Even as it’s talking about sexuality, which is [obscured by crosstalk]. [Chuckles] I read about that movie.
DEE: And I think here’s maybe an important point, that’s something I think you brought up earlier, MERU: is that Turning Red is emphatically, emphatically a movie targeted at preteen girls.
MERU: Yeah.
DEE: Emphatically, that is the target audience for that film. And maybe those who remember being preteen girls and being way too into the hot boy band at the time.
[Chuckling]
DEE: And I think you were the one who pointed out that a lot of the slice-of-life-style series tend to run in seinen. And demographic labels are fuzzy, but those are magazines that are targeted at adult men. And so, you know—
MERU: And Akebi ran in a seinen. It runs in a seinen. That is why we see so… That’s why Sis in the first episode sniffs those nail clippers. She sniffs them because that’s not appealing to marginalized genders; that’s appealing to, I would say, a cis masculine view of what is attractive or what is [obscured by crosstalk].
ALEX: [crosstalk] Yeah, a very specific slice of your presumed audience.
DEE: Also, let’s specify: minors. if you want to watch a series about a sexy adult lady, fine, get your rocks off, I don’t care. But let’s specify that these are minors.
MERU: Yeah, and that’s where it’s heightening that slice-of-life and it’s actually turning it grotesque, but it’s not making a comment on it, because it is just like “Here’s some teenage girls in middle school. Here’s their feet.” And there’s no comment on that.
Whereas, I think slice-of-life… what is so important about it is that it is making a comment. It’s making the comment that existing is powerful and that the moments that we have, while we may not remember them in whatever happens to us when we all die or pass on, those moments that we make are important no matter how mundane they are. Whereas, Akebi, as much as I actually enjoyed it, I do find a lot of fault with the sexualization because it obscures what is a really good show with the message of “Isn’t being a child great?” It obscures it with feet.
DEE: Well, I think what you’re kind of talking about is… it is that voyeurism, is that sense of “I want to keep on…” God, we could spend the whole episode on the long history of "peeking" in Japanese literature and how that works from a romantic perspective. But boy, we don’t have time. We’re running close to the half-hour at this point anyway. Like I said, that’s a whole conversation.
MERU: Oh, it is.
DEE: But I think what you’re referring to is that sense that it becomes sort of voyeuristic and it’s peeking in on what the writer and audience thinks it is like to live that vicarious experience, right?
MERU: Instead of the real experience.
DEE: Instead of grounding it in something that is more genuine and relatable and not gross, which is why… But, you know, then you have stuff like Flying Witch, which runs in a shounen, and, I mean, I haven’t read the manga, but based on the anime, is—
MERU: Manga great.
DEE: Yeah, is fine. You don’t have that sense of voyeurism. So it’s a very delicate balance, and it is why, especially during the moe boom, a lot of slice-of-life just did not click for me.
For me, it is the difference between K-On! season 1 and K-On! season 2, where season 1, I think, leans a lot into some of the infantilization and embarrassment-based humor. It is… I’m blanking on the character’s names, but it is actively mean to some of its characters for daring to try to have confidence.
MERU: [crosstalk] Oh, Mio?
DEE: Mio. It is actively mean to Mio whenever she tries to build confidence for herself.
MERU: Yes, she tries to get confidence and they show the rice bowl, which is her underwear and just… ugh, horrible.
DEE: Yeah, and then you get to season 2 and I think a lot of those heightened infantilized, embarrassment elements get smoothed out or grounded and, basically, Yamada gets to take more creative control. And then season 2 is… while it’s still not necessarily a show that I think is for me, I get why people like it as a slice-of-life about girls in a club hanging out. And there are some very emotionally resonant moments in it, because I think it does ground itself more in the lived experiences of its characters rather than what a presumed male audience wants to see out of its characters.
ALEX: Yeah, this is a tricky thing, right? Every piece of art is made to be looked at. It is made presuming an audience. And in talking about quote-unquote “authenticity” in terms of capturing the lived experience of a particular demographic, that gets tricky really quickly.
DEE: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely it does.
ALEX: And especially with something like this, Laid-Back Camp, again, K-On! season 2, I found them to be quite authentic in many different ways to the lived experience I had had as a teenage girl, but they’re also kind of fantasy versions of them. But again, it’s about the smoke and mirrors of all fiction.
DEE: Oh, absolutely. There’s always an element of removing it slightly from reality because it makes a better story that way, right?
ALEX: It makes a more chill experience for a slice-of-life show! You can’t go into all the gritty details.
And yeah, to kind of wrap us up, to loop back to something Dee said, your point about how you were drawn to shoujo because you had female heroines and those were not common, that’s honestly kind of the interesting things I find about slice-of-life: is that maybe this is created in a way that serves a certain demographic, but it also serves me, because it is one of the few places where you can find ensemble casts of teenage girls just doing stuff. It doesn’t end up fixated—
DEE: Just hanging out. Yeah.
ALEX: It doesn’t end up fixated on romance or sex in the way that live-action teen dramas often can. It doesn’t often focus on drama. It’s all, yeah, these interpersonal friendship relationships—or perhaps more, depending on your yuri angle of your series, of course. That varies!
But yeah, honestly, not to unilaterally put a big stamp of “This is fair female empowerment and it’s all great!” but honestly, one of the things I do find really rewarding about slice-of-life and these hobby shows is that it’s girls doing stuff, it’s girls being weird, it’s girls being allowed to just be themselves, existing as themselves in a community and not being turned into love interests or not being turned into love triangles. You know, this is—
DEE: Or forced to compete with each other, right?
ALEX: Yeah!
DEE: And I mean, they might get into fights or give each other shit sometimes. That’s one of the things I love about Laid-Back Camp: is the way they kind of tease each other, joke around, especially via text. But at the end of the day, these are healthy, supportive relationships. These are people who genuinely like each other. And for the longest time, that was really hard to find in English-speaking media! So, yeah, no, I agree.
Again, I like to push on the question of demographics and where the line is and when things flip, but I absolutely agree with you. I totally understand that that is a huge appealing factor of these shows and, when done well, I think, is a huge bonus in their favor as well.
MERU: For sure, for sure, for sure.
ALEX: [crosstalk] For sure.
MERU: God, I love this genre.
[Chuckling]
DEE: Did anybody want to drop a quick lightning-round rec with very little context around it before we close, or should I play us out?
ALEX: Ah, I’m just gonna go watch Laid-Back Camp again.
MERU: [crosstalk] Girls’ Last Tour!
DEE: Go watch Laid-Back Camp?
ALEX: Girls’ Last Tour is a [unclear] one because yeah, that’s like a sci-fi slice-of-life, post-apocalyptic…
MERU: Yeah, Girls’ Last Tour.
ALEX: Oh my gosh, that could be a whole podcast episode of itself [obscured by crosstalk].
DEE: [crosstalk] Oh, Girls’ Last Tour— Yeah, God, apocalypse— No, that’s a retrospective right there. Girls’ Last Tour is. Yeah, we… Ooh! Yeah, that’s many genres into it compiled in one.
MERU: [crosstalk] I’m coming in heavy!
ALEX: [obscured by crosstalk] into it. [Chuckles]
DEE: Yeah. No, I think we talked about the ones I liked best, so we touched on the one I wanted to make sure we touched on.
ALEX: [crosstalk] Mm-hm. Everybody’s covered.
DEE: Love me a good Flying Witch. Season 2 when?
MERU: So good. So good.
ALEX: Mm! Yeah, season 2 when? Lovely.
DEE: Okay. Well, we don’t really have an official send-out for these because if you’re listening to this, you know where to find more of us.
ALEX: [Chuckles]
DEE: You probably know about our Twitter and our website. Thank you all for your support. You know, we couldn’t do this without you.
A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants. Uh…
[Laughter]
MERU: Please end it there! [Laughs]
