on sena’s gigantic tits

So:

Looks like I gotta now!

I had watched the first two episodes (or technically, episodes 0 and 1) of Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai until I raegquit it due to a presence of eXXXtreme kimoi-sity. I had not, however read the manga before I read SDS’ post comparing the anime with the manga. Despite not having read the manga, I had a similar response to the anime as he did. But to really see what he was getting at, I read the first dozen or so chapters of the manga for confirmation.

First things first: let’s all agree that manga has a “cinematic” style to it. I’m mentioning that up front because I’m going to be comparing the composition and “editing” of the individual shots/panels between the anime and the manga.

Next: the vast majority of movies and TV shows are shot in the visual style that goes by a whole bunch of names like classical Hollywood paradigm, continuity editing, “cinematic style”, “invisible editing” and so on. The main idea behind this style is that the visual aspects of the film are supposed to be “invisible” and serve to drive the plot along rather than to draw attention to themselves. So for example, let’s say that there’s a scene where a character receives a letter. We’ll first see a shot of the person receiving the letter or perhaps opening it. Maybe we’ll have a shot of their face while opening it. Then, we’ll most likely have a shot of the letter itself. This will probably be followed by a shot of the character who is reading it so that we can see their reaction to what they have just seen.

So, why would the scene be shot this way? First off, this scene is most likely in the movie/show in the first place because this letter is going to convey some information that it meaningful to the progression of the plot. I know that sounds obvious, but I need to mention it anyway. Next, the shot of the letter. This is done so that we can read the letter and know what important information is contained with it. Without a shot of the letter or some sort of voiceover, we’ll be oblivious as to what it contains. After that, the shot of the character. This is put there so that we can see how important the letter is. Does it surprise the character? Sadden? Excite? Enrage? That’s important because it will lead into where the story is going to go next. We’ll now know if this is a plot twist or the climax of the action based on what we see the character express.

Now, let’s think about what’s not shown. Here’s an excerpt from Jeanne Dielman of a similar scene.

Did you actually watch the whole thing? Don’t lie. It’s okay if you didn’t. Our film theory prof joked that he was going to chain the screening room doors closed when we watched this in grad school so that nobody would try to escape. Anyway, think about how this scene is very different from the one that I just invented. First of all, there is no editing or camera movement. It’s plopped down at around waist level and that’s all we get. Because of that, we don’t get to see anything about the book that Jeanne is reading, since after all it’s way too far away and not facing us so we can’t read it. We get deprived of any kind of insight in to what Jeanne thinks about it because we don’t get any shots of her face. We also have to sit here the whole time as she sits here and methodically reads her book, rather than getting the crucial bits of it that the plot relies on.

I coulda that I did an April Fool’s day post on this aspect of that film, but that must’ve been the old site. Maybe I’ll reuse it for 2012.

Back to Haganai, or as you call it, Bokutomo. Let’s use the same comparison that SDS uses.

The portrayal in the manga is pretty much the standard “cinematic” style. We first see Kodaka say something, which is then followed by a panel of Sena’s response to that, with Kodaka to the side. The first panel shows Kodaka is being fairly nonchalant about what he’s saying. The statement doesn’t really have any kind of weight with him. The second panel greatly emphasizes Sena and her reaction so that we can both see how this question affects her, as well as emphasize the effect that it has on her (and also, Kodaka’s smaller presence in the corner magnifies this as well.)

The anime’s portrayal is just well, Sena’s gigantic tits. Any kind of narrative development from this scene in the anime has to rely entirely on the spoken dialogue, because Sena’s gigantic tits don’t express anything narratively. In fact, you may get a weird outcome due to the Kuleshov Effect where you want to mentally tie the shots together (Kodaka talking about his snack followed by Sena’s gigantic tits) where the conclusion is that he’s now leering at her tits, since that’s normally the effect in mind when a shot of a character’s face is followed by an object.

And don’t get me wrong (“and don’t get me wrong?” What is this post, tsundere? “And don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I want to explain vernacular modernism to you! It’s just that y…you’re so hopeless that if I didn’t do everything for you you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself, baka!”) Anyway. Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t a dichotomy between fanservice of no fanservice. Regardless of medium, this is still a pool episode and Sena is still walking around in a bikini. Hell, she’s wearing less clothing in the manga! So there is definitely no rule saying that fanservice or butts or hot springs episodes or boobies or sacks of lactating fat are inherently bad because they disrupt the narrative or characterization and whatnot. The problem arises when there’s an opportunity cost to the fanservice, like in this case how it’s replacing some character development. The anime is egregious enough in this aspect that while the manga made everyone appear to me as cute but socially awkward girls, the anime made them feel like hateable sex objects because we lost the parts that made them endearing despite their strageness, while ramping up the objectification of their bodies.

Bonus #1: This is all similar to my complaints about Shaft and how their use of baroque visuals essentially turns their shows into drama CDs.

Bonus #2: I don’t know if I can fully go there, but one could use the observation that anime often can’t really depict subtleties of acting well (due one part from lack of skills from the animators and one part not enough of a budget to be able to include such nuanced animation) to write about how anime so very infrequently produces good dramas. Hence why we end up with shows like say, Anohana where they need to use excessive bawww-ing to portray emotions since they can’t do it with a facial tic.

Bonus #3: Is it just me, or does this series get hella misogynist at times in the really sexualized ways that Yozora and Sena insult women (namely each other)? ESPECIALLY that whole scene with the eroge.

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19 thoughts on “on sena’s gigantic tits”

  1. Hoh, fascinating.
    I have only followed the anime, so I had no idea that the manga had many more visual cues.

    Speaking of visual cues, this is sort of irrelevant to your post, but in my opinion, one of the reasons why some adaptations like Bakuman do bad is because mangas are better at expressing facial expressions. You can have a full page spread of a manga characters face, and the readers can spend time taking in all the details. In an anime, however, facial expressions cannot be shown for too long, and if they are weird faces, it becomes hard to pull of the face without screwing up.

    Anyway, for some weird reason, I am enjoying this anime, I don’t know if it’s misogynist or not, it probably is, I guess, it does sort of objectify girls a bit, but I am a Hentai-San, so I don’t really notice. :(

    • The Bakuman anime bores me a lot too, which I think has to do as well with how they need to have stuff take up time, rather than like you said, just showing a panel with all the visual information.

  2. I think the point in general is taken, but the specific comparison here is rather incomplete. The scene in the manga is severely truncated compared to the anime; the manga only uses 5 pages (15 frames) for that entire scene, whereas the anime is almost 2 minutes (21 cuts). The way the scene in full plays out is a fair bit more involved:

    Cut 7: Over Sana’s shoulder, Kodaka: “I should greet your father”
    Cut 8: Extreme Close-up on Sana’s face: Shocked reaction
    Cut 9: Medium shot with both, Sana: “Why do you need to do that?”
    Cut 10: Close-up on Sana: “You’re not planning to date me are you…?”
    Cut 11: Over Sana’s shoulder, Kodaka’s neutral reaction: “Why are you misunderstanding?…”
    Cut 12: Sana Close-up: “You should have said that to start.”
    Cut 13: Medium shot with both, conversation transition, Sana: “You’re getting cheeky; know your place…”
    Cut 14: Angled Close-up of Kodaka, with Sana still in frame: “Meat…”
    Cut 15: Extreme Close-up on Sana: “What?”
    Cut 16: Over Sana’s shoulder, Kodaka: “Oh no, I just mean there’s meat in my meal…”
    Cut 17: as explanation continues, Sana’s stomach relaxes when she understands what’s going on, Sana: “Stop saying things like that.”, Kodaka: “You’re responding to that nickname now.” Sana: “That idiot…”
    Cut 18: Over Sana’s shoulder, Sana: “…why’d she have to give me that nickname.”

    …and so on. So the entire exchange previous to that one shot and everything leading up to that shot was using the typical cinematic style. In context, this was actually her second misunderstanding that carried out in almost exactly the same way, hence I assume the shot change (though the stomach relaxing is a bit of a weird/obscure visual cue, but it replaces the face presumably because that already happened 45 seconds ago — maybe this is trying to pass as an “art shot”).

    You can’t really adequately compare this to the manga because the conversation flow is completely different. She never has the first misunderstanding, and the big “blow-up” she has is about the “Meat” comment, rather than the “greet your father” comment. So the manga was being economical by doing in 7 quick panels what the anime told in 12 cuts (presumably incorporating a lot more information from the original novel).

    Like I said, the overall comparison of styles is interesting and may be accurate overall, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to use one cut in a long scene as the sole comparison point for the two approaches, when the scenes are actually quite different. Granted, you’re not necessarily the one who “brought it up”, as the actual scene comparison was in the original article.

    (And yes, this is way more text than is needed about this particular scene, but the concept of the cinematic framing of the shots is still pretty interesting to me.)

  3. Just for some clarification, it should be pointed out that the misunderstanding between Sena and Kodaka about Sena’s dad DOES happen in the manga, it just happens earlier in the story when they’re first getting into the pool. So, she has two big reactions in the manga as well, they just don’t happen within the same scene. Whether that means the manga is more or less “economical” than the anime, I think is not a concern here, but it does mean that in both cases the “meat” misunderstanding comes second.

    The reason I used that for the comparison wasn’t specifically about the cinematography of the shot, which JP talks about here in detail to make up for that, but firstly to show that where the manga bothers (a second time) to show her expression first and foremost, the anime sees fit to focus on the underside of her breasts and that strange stomach movement. I understand that it doesn’t show the full scenes in detail which makes for an abbreviated comparison, but to elaborate, I find the anime’s depiction of that moment to still have less impact than the manga’s because of the much more standard character designs that seem to emphasize their sexuality above all else and the reliance on spoken dialogue as JP mentions. Even the shots in the anime with Sena’s face don’t carry as much expression with them.

    Another reason is to show an example of the anime’s tendency to linger on shots designed to emphasize the girls’ breasts or butts. I didn’t bother to take a screenshot of a number of instances to try and prove my point, but if you go through the entire pool episode or even beyond the pool episode, I think this is made clear. Just compare the way Sena first gets into the pool in the anime vs. how she does it in the manga.

    • “Another reason is to show an example of the anime’s tendency to linger on shots”

      Oh, that’s another point too: comics and film/TV have very different temporality. A panel or page or even just part of a panel in a manga lasts as long as you want it to last. You could sit there and stare at one drawing for hours if you wanted to. Film/TV OTOH move along at their own pace. A shot will last for a specified amount of time before it switches to something else. So when it comes to fanservicey shots like this, it can fell like they go on for an inordinate amount of time if you’ve already digested that yep, that’s a camel toe or something.

      Bonus: watch this scene first with the sound off, then with the sound on. You’ll see how the lack of sound makes it feel like it goes on forever, and then when the sound is on it’ll feel like it goes by significantly more quickly. That’s because sounds after all can’t be held out indefinitely like an image can.

  4. I guess I’m seeing a different view. Disclaimers: Haven’t read the manga. I’m going off the panel that everyone has posted multiple times, so I can only comment on what I observed and thought about said scene.

    My personal thought when I see the scene that everyone is talking about, is not a focus on Sena’s boobs for obvious underboob placement. What I see is someone who genetically is not a small girl that went shopping for a bikini to be fashionable, and couldn’t find one that fit right. Being that a typical Japanese woman does not have gigantits like Sena, what the animators have chosen to show is that Sena couldn’t find a swimsuit that fits right.

    Second, Sena’s dropping of her stomach. To me, her body image, which I’m sure isn’t helped by Yozora, is that she’s fat. My wife teaches voice, and her students do the same thing because they think they’re fat (good singers can’t hold their stomachs in and sing properly). Sena dropping her stomach was either her being unable to hold it anymore, or she’s becoming relaxed enough around Kodaka that she’s OK showing her real self.

    Thirdly, as mentioned, she wears less in the manga, where in the anime she’s wearing a coverup. Which again is indicative, to me, that she’s embarrassed by the fit of her swimsuit, and/or her being perceived as fat.

    You bring up a lot of good points on shot choice, but the focus here, again to me, was not her tits, but her body image. I’m guessing the anime is adapting the novels, but I really don’t know, and the novel may have emphasized her body image more than the manga. Regardless, I would have never looked at this scene again had this post not shown up.

  5. @sdshamshel: I think the fact that the two parts don’t happen in the same scene in the manga is rather important because of the flow of the scene. In other words, in the anime, what was the point of showing her reaction again when we just saw that before — it’s redundant, and the voice carries the intonation. (And case in point, I think the anime script writer actually had a different interpretation of Sena’s reaction — in the anime, Sena was not outraged by the “meat” misunderstanding, she was just annoyed. So her lack of a “big reaction” in the anime is because, in the anime, she didn’t have one.) Now I know it’s part of a larger point that the anime is less expressive than the manga due to the more restrained expressions… but isn’t part of this just a case of the strengths of the medium? All a manga has is visuals and dialog (with occasional narration, I guess), so it has to use expressive visuals to convey things like “tone”. The anime has the additional dimensions of both the spoken voice and the music to help carry it.

    In terms of “temporality”, I’ve noticed that, in general, anime based on light novels have a different sense of timing compared to those based on manga. I think this is because manga has a certain pace determined by the panels and flow inherent to the short chapter length (each chapter has to push the story forward), whereas light novels can have long drawn-out conversations and big stretches of narration that help set the stage, since each chapter is much longer. So when adapting a light novel to anime, the script writers often seem to try to leave in as much dialog as possible, which gives the storyboard artist the challenge of trying to keep the show visually interesting while people “talk it out”. I assume this is where the original comment about some anime resembling “drama CDs” comes from; some storyboard artists will try to use art shots to break up the long dialog, but I guess this could be frustrating for people who are often looking for visual cues.

    I personally am more attuned to the audio, so personally the art shots and “lack of expressiveness” don’t bother me too much, as a lot of the expression is in the tone of voice which is something you obviously can’t find in manga. This is probably also why I’ve also always been a bit more of an anime fan than a manga fan, since the dimensions of voice and music are a big value-add to me. I personally notice that I tend to read manga way too quickly when I probably *should* slow down and linger on shots a bit more. So because of that, even the expressiveness of manga panels tends not to have quite as much of a lasting impact on me. Light novels being a little bit more drawn out and descriptive helps slow things down, and I tend to get more out of it in that medium. So anyway… yeah, I think there’s some personal angle in this as well that may depend on our personalities/preferences/etc. and what cues we’re most attuned to. In this particular scene, framing of that particular shot notwithstanding, I think there’s a bit more subtlety in the voicing that the big blown-up reaction of the manga doesn’t quite convey — whether that’s ultimately better or worse, I don’t know.

    • The tricky part is that even if the important information is being delivered through the dialogue, it’s not like this means that the visuals are a freeroll. They’re still transmitting some kind of meaning to the viewer. So when they’re not working along the same goal as the dialog, our attention gets split somewhat. The most extreme problems here are like my Shaft beef above.

      My other beef is in exactly the sort of thing that you mention about the tendency to randomly insert some clip art into a conversation in order to keep the viewer engaged. That always bothers me for multiple reasons: 1) it shows that the dialogue on its own is boring/uninteresting 2) it places too much emphasis on telling rather than showing and 3) it demonstrates a sense of poor pacing. There’s something that profoundly bothers me about people realizing that their dialog is so lame that they need to distract the audience from it even though that dialog is actually the raison d’etre for the scene! Like, one of the things that the classical Hollywood style does perfectly is deliver dialog in a way that gets you to pay attention to it while never making you think “Gee, there really isn’t anything creative going on visually right now”!

  6. Re: the visuals not being on a “freeroll”, this makes sense in concept (though I have been known to like certain Shaft shows, depending on how they’re done). In this particular example, we have one “odd” cut in a scene that is otherwise fairly standard in its presentation, but I guess it stood out for… obvious reasons. ^^; It wasn’t on the “clip art” level, but focusing on Sena relaxing her stomach was certainly an odd choice. I guess this is what the storyboard artist gets for trying something different. :p

    Some of this in general may point to the production conditions of the show, and the relationship between the scriptwriter, the storyboard artist, the episode director, and the show director. Given the tight timelines and how little some of these people are paid, I’m not sure how much ability there is for the directors to really keep refining the dialog, tweaking the storyboards, and re-editing the content while preserving that precise 24-minute length. To some of the storyboard artists, it may sometimes be a case of “when life hands you lemons…”. That said, I guess I still try to keep an open mind. Some shows have managed to be meaningful/relevant/entertaining to me despite not strictly adhering to the traditional rules and guidelines.

  8. i think that kimaguresan has a very good point in the presentation of that scene. They are trying to focus on what she thinks of body image more than the flow of the plot through visuals which i think may be the case.

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  10. Hang on a minute. Did I just see a teenager with puppy fat……..in anime?? I’ve always said that when it comes to Shaft anime, its more about Shaft themselves and how ‘Clockwork Orange’ the imagery can be than the source material and the sad truth is that want the more…faithful audience wants from them. Onwards, placard abuse.

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  13. “Is it just me, or does this series get hella misogynist at times in the really sexualized ways that Yozora and Sena insult women (namely each other)?”

    Duuuuuuhhhhhh. And this is my biggest problem with the show – its attempting to get away with being hyper-misogynistic without being called out on it, so it puts the most hateful lines in the mouths of female characters. Because, well, its a girl saying it, so it obviously isn’t woman-hating! What girl does that, sheesh?

    Of course, one also has a pretty strong sense that the people responsible for this show never interacted with girls in high school. The dialogue between Sena and Yozora is frequently absurd. Somehow, through four years of high school as a girl, I never heard girls interact even remotely like that face-to-face. Sure, girls would call each other bitches and sluts to their faces, but the graphic level Sena and Yozora routinely reach strains belief.

    • Yeah, bitches and slut is one thing, it’s another to go on and on about the other is a syphillitic cumdumpster who juts out her cowtits in hopes that it’ll cause her to get gangraped like the animal in heat that she is.

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