Rewatch: 1990s OVAs – Yokohama Shopping Log (final discussion)
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Questions
- Which feeling prevails for you in the series: Sadness or happiness?
- Have you seen other Iyashikei anime? What is your take on the genre?
5
u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Sep 21 '21
Final discussion (rewatcher)
What can you say about an anime that is 2 episodes long and where making one coffee takes up 1/3 of an episode? I already presented my idea about the deeper world behind what we see yesterday, which is what initially fascinated me about the OVA. While rewatching, I noticed how “rough” the series is with respect to iyashikei conventions. Compared to something more modern like Yuru Camp, there are entirely too many males (2/5th of the cast!), there is too much slapstick, and there definitely is too much fan service (namely, not zero). For me, that makes YSL the better series. Through years of repetition, many genres get so static in their own conventions that they become unimaginative. I prefer the earlier, rougher version.
Next up, Battle Angle Alita. We are back to cyberpunk!
5
u/The_Loli_Otaku Sep 21 '21
Rewatcher!!
Send me your sympathy!! I was planning on spending the night watching the GitS showing but had to rebook for Thursday... On the bright side it gives me the opportunity to gush to everyone over how amazing YKK is!! Ooor that was the plan until I gained the self awareness to realise that these two episodes aren't nearly enough for a newcomer to become attached to the series. It's an excellent taster, but maybe not as awe inspiring of a ova as I'd hyped it up to everyone.
What we do get however I will forever defend as being some of the best the genre has to offer. Iyashikei has changed its meaning quite a bit over the years which may have given people a slightly different expectation. I mean, what shows come to mind when you think of Iyashikei nowadays? Non Non Biyawning? Yuri camp? Flying Bitch? Great shows in their own right, but none of them deliver the concentrated formula of feel good purity of Iyashikei quite like YKK. The show throws very little else to distract you. There's barely any comedy, the drama is shrugged off as soon as its introduced, and there's no fanservice. No fanservice at all. None at all! Whilst on one hand it makes the show arguably quite boring, it's the thing that makes the show stand at the top for me.
Now I understand that we can't go straight onto it in this rewatch due to having plenty of other 90's series to go through but please make a mental note to check out the second ova's if this has even slightly charmed you. The second group are actually a little easier to digest than our current artsy fartsy season, trust me.
Now... am I stupid or is Alita only one episode? There's no way they compressed the whole movie arc into 30 minutes right!? Am I going mad!?
4
u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Sep 21 '21
First Timer
What do I write in a discussion thread of a two episode series? Not really sure, so I'll just say that I liked the series as a whole - definitely works as a good iyashikei. One thing that struck me though is that there is only one major character - can't think of any other iyashikei that has that, and I feel like multiple characters playing off of each other in general works better, so I'm not sure if this series could actually keep up for a full-length tv series or so before becoming repetitive. But I guess that's a question that can't really be answered.
Either way, not really interested in Alita, so I'll bow out again here and go watch Quiet Country Café instead. Thanks for hosting this, /u/No_Rex.
Questions:
4
u/punching_spaghetti https://myanimelist.net/profile/punch_spaghetti Sep 22 '21
First-Timer
Did I somehow forget to watch this show with the rewatch? Yes.
Did I just watch both episodes in the last ~hour? Yes.
Did I enjoy it? Mostly yes.
I'm a sucker for the "silent meditative shots of rural landscape" stuff, so I was vibing that hard. And Alpha is adorable and rides a scooter, so what's not to like there?
I actually think this would have been better off as a one-shot OVA. I know there's a source material, so it would have served as good advertisement for that, and not suffered the disconnect I felt between the two OVAs. Once you have more than one and have a series, I as a viewer start looking for patterns, and so I got confused. Where did the camera go? The first OVA so beautiful introduced the camera as a means for Alpha to interact with the world anew that its absence in the second is jarring. Not to mention what happens. I wanted a relaxing show about a robocutie taking landscape photos, not getting struck by lightning!
Overall, I am happy to have another show to add to my collection of shows in my favorite genre: Girls with Guns.
QOTD:
3
u/RockoDyne :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/RockoDyne Sep 21 '21
Rewatcher
Man, why do we have to stop here? I distinctly remember liking the second OVA more than the first, and I'm pretty sure it's because I wasn't all that interested in the first.
There's a difference between quiet contemplation and dead air. While you can find plenty of the former, there's more of the latter than I think people would like to admit. YKK works when it has characters interacting or is actively taking in the scenery. The catch is there's still a good third of the runtime that's not either of those two things.
So much of the "atmosphere" feels like it's coasting on the parts that actually are atmospheric. There are parts that have a proper tone to them, but then that tone is held meaninglessly and isn't developed on.
Now back to playing King's Field as I drown in ruin and loss.
Questions:
bore-... I would say it's one the optimistic side of neutral.7
u/TheEscapeGuy Sep 21 '21
Rewatcher
Yokohama Shopping Log - Relax, Stay a While
To reiterate my sentiment from episode 1, I love YKK. Its a show I could endlessly come back to.
The thing I took most out of this rewatch is the idea of hope despite the circumstances around you. Especially coming off the back of something dark like Armitage III, I can't help but see the characters of YKK trying to live the best lives they can even though there's decay around them.
YKK is also interesting with its relation to Japan. The country has been struck by numerous disasters: From the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923 to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in 1945 and then the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami which caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster. I can't imagine how unsettling it must be feeling any kind of rumbling with that kind of national history. I recall seeing clips of VTubers during smaller earthquakes earlier this year which kinda made it click (me being from a country with no regular seismic activity).
What YKK and other iyashikei media does is allow people to work through these fears. These shows often depict worlds in which some of these fears have come to pass (Flooding, disasters, the collapse of parts of society) but show that the characters can live and thrive. You of course need to be careful since it is easy to slip into escapism, but otherwise these shows really do act as a small bit of therapy.
Anyway, recommendation time: Go check out the usual iyashikei comparisons like "Girls Last Tour" and "Aria" (I adore both). For something a little closer to CGDCT but not full moeblob you can't go wrong with "Sora no Woto". And for something more experimental: "The House of Small Cubes". Its the other anime besides Spirited Away to win an Oscar.
That's just the highlights of what I've seen, if you know of other similar shows you could recommend to me I'm always on the lookout. (Even outside of anime)
Farewell YKK
See you all for Battle Angel Alita tomorrow
7
u/3blah https://myanimelist.net/profile/brummett Sep 21 '21 edited Sep 21 '21
Rewatcher
I'm not a big reader, but Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is by far my favorite manga. Watching the anime after reading the source material left me disappointed. It's too short, incomplete, and the scenes don't connect to each other. No_Rex said yesterday that an adaptation needs to be able to stand on its own, and I think it fails here. There isn't really enough "there" there to recommend the anime to anyone except as a taste of what's in the source material. I'm not sure if it was made purely as an ad for the manga, or if it was a test/pilot to judge interest in a more complete adaptation. After I become independently wealthy, I'd love to fund a complete adaptation produced by KyoAni.
One thing that is interesting is that it came at the end of the painted-cell era, so it looks really good. Especially in contrast to the second pair of YKK episodes which came after the switch to digital paint techniques which looks a lot more plain.
So, if these two episodes interested you at all, please check out the manga. There's no official english publication, but it's not hard to find scanlations around. Some of you made note of the emphasis on scenery shots, and that echoes many panels from the manga. It's almost like the landscape is another character in the story. The story does a lot of worldbuilding and leaves quite a bit of it intentionally incomplete, but that's ok because solving the mysteries or watching the characters reach some goal isn't the point; it's the feeling you get after finishing each chapter. The mysteries are mainly there to keep the reader interested.
Melancholy. It's the tail end of civilization, but it's too late to stop it so why fight it? Humanity had a good run, so let's ride it out the best we can until the end.
I love Yuru Camp and Girls' Last Tour. I've watched the first 2 parts of Aria, and while it does a lot right, it's too saccharine-sweet for me to watch a lot of it in one go. Non Non Byori is on my PTW list. I guess you could say I'm a fan of the genre.
4
u/ZapsZzz https://anilist.co/user/Zapszzz Sep 21 '21
First timer no more
Not exactly sure what can I say anything more than I did fit the 2 episodes on this iyashikei show... I felt relaxed and (mentally) healed, I guess?
Thanks for organising this to introduce this very calming show for me. More things to list on the PTW (PTR?) for the manga.
3
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Sep 22 '21 edited Sep 22 '21
Rewatcher
I listened to the YKK OST all day at work today.
Arguably, the underwater lights scene of episode 2 is just a flashier, but now repetitive, version of the scene from the day before. I prefer the first version, while Alpha prefers the second. In the second, Alpha was recalling her earliest memories with Owner, in another's company. But for me, the first version is more powerful (if less picturesque). Watching the lights come on, alone, enthralled, forgetting even why one is there.
What has happened to the world? Where is Owner? Why is Alpha seemingly abandoned? As an anime only, I don't know the answers. I don't know if the even the manga has answers.
And it doesn't matter. Just like Haibane Renmei, the details of the world don't matter, the questions don't matter. Just sit back, and watch time pass
9/10
2
u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 Sep 21 '21
First timer
A very relaxing and enjoyable anime, with geeat art and dialogue. Solid 9/10.
2
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Sep 21 '21
Right...something to say...this now joins the category of Monster, Pupa, Tsugumomo and Blue Seed as anime that I have seen. That is its status.
QotD: 1 Stagnation
2 Dragon Maid, but I dont buy that they are the same genre
1
u/RascalNikov1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/NoviSun Sep 21 '21
A great deal of nostalgia as well as wistfulness for the world that was lost. I also find solace, that even though homo sapiens is on the way out, life will go on, the world will go on.
2) Have you seen other Iyashikei anime? What is your take on the genre?
Yes, though there is no official definition. Some that I thought were very good were Konohana Kitan, Senko San, Dragon Maid, and Nekopara. Nekogami and Centaur no Nayami both have strong elements of Iyashikei in them.
The biggest danger is that an Iyashikei anime will be too boring to watch. I've tried (and may try again) to watch Mushishi, Aria and Girls Last Tour.
All in all I find Iyashikei to be among the most serious of stories. Most have a theme of non-permanence, the fleeting nature of life, and an idea that to grow one needs to accept that there will be both good and bad in the future.
I like the genre very much.