Animation

Slave Palace Maid

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In the animation 《Apothecary Diaries》, there is a plot where the protagonist is kidnapped and forced to work as a slave palace maid. This is a bit counterintuitive because in common palace dramas, the protagonists voluntarily enter the palace. However, slave palace maids were actually not uncommon. Some were even granted imperial concubine titles by the emperor (such as Yuan Consort, Noble Consort, and Noble Lady) and could even give birth to the emperor’s children.

Empress Wenming of Wencheng, of the Feng clan and Li Shier were both forced into the palace because their families were implicated in crimes. Although Feng did not give birth to a prince, Consort Li was given the death penalty after giving birth to Emperor Xianwen of Northern Wei due to the Northern Wei’s “mother dies when son is ennobled” system, and Feng then raised the emperor. (However, the story that follows is a bit abstract: Feng favored the palace guard commander Li Yi, and Emperor Xianwen executed Li Yi and his brothers, and then Feng poisoned Emperor Xianwen.)

Another situation involved prisoners of war, such as Empress Dowager Xiaomu Ji. In the second year of Chenghua (1466), Emperor Xianzong of Ming campaigned against the barbarians. Because Ji’s hometown was destroyed, she was apparently taken into the palace along the way… Ji later gave birth to Emperor Xiaozong of Ming. The reason why her status was so low, yet she still became empress dowager, was because the most powerful Consort Wan at the time persecuted all pregnant palace maids, but the palace maid who acted showed pity for Ji and falsely claimed that it was just bloating, and Consort Wan believed her.

From this, it seems that the situation of slave palace maids was not uncommon in the past, but the Qing Dynasty’s requirements for the bloodlines of palace maids were too high, and slave palace maids disappeared. However, 《Apothecary Diaries》 is originally a fictional work with only a Chinese style, so there is no need to evaluate it using the standards of a serious historical drama.

Wrapping Up ” Trope

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『別冊少年magazine』2023 年 3 月号, its cover is “Attack on Titan”, but this is obviously not a scene from the plot, but a group photo of the actors after the filming ended. In the spin-off of “Attack on Titan”, “Attack on Titan: Junior High” (Titan American High), the protagonists even watched “Attack on Titan” in person and expressed their feelings.

Although the audience clearly knows that fictional works are fictional, the audience may still be significantly affected by the emotions of the story. Only when the protagonist in the cruel story personally states that this is just acting will the audience feel better.

The most likely work to use the wrapping up gag is the OVA of the anime “Black Butler II” 〈Black Butler 2 Production Special〉 (Bilibili Online Viewing), which uses a documentary format to tell the story of the characters’ evaluation of the series, behind-the-scenes footage during filming, etc.

There are also some potential wrapping up gags, such as characters making previews for the next episode in a way that breaks the fourth wall, characters wearing somewhat OOC costumes or behaviors in the ending song, and audio commentary, etc. The former two are obvious in “Blood Blockade Battlefront”. The next episode preview of the second episode was made by Ahab, but he died in this episode, and the preview also complains about this.

The ending song of “Blood Blockade Battlefront” is the protagonist and the villains dancing on stage in formal attire. Although they are not dancing on the same stage, it looks like a party after filming. The ending song of DARLING in the FRANXX is even more obvious, because it features familiar real-world content such as casual clothes, cities, trains, transparent umbrellas, and construction sites, which looks like the actors are filming some kind of promotional video.

ADV games that are not so commercial, or doujin type, also often have wrapping up gags. Including Fate/stay night and “The Mystery of the Human Wolf Village”, when the wrong choice is made, the characters will explain what to pay attention to. “Higurashi When They Cry” and “The House in Fata Morgana” also have some kind of party after the wrapping up, where the actors celebrate the end of the story and thank the players for appreciating this long story.

Postscript: When the movie “How to Get Away with the Dead” was introduced to the mainland, the plot was packaged as filming a movie (and renamed “How to Get Away with the Dead”), which can be regarded as using wrapping up gags to circumvent censorship.

3303-6761-0110

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Note that the following content involves a small amount of plot from “BanG Dream! Ave Mujica” ep.1.

In the anime “BanG Dream! Ave Mujica” ep.1, the phone number “3303-6761-0110” appeared. Bilibili UP master Lao Jiang believes in the Reaction video that this may not be the phone number of the police station. Because the previous police station’s phone number had the “Akabane Police Station” remark, but this time it is a phone number, there is a possibility of a narrative trick.

The logic is that the director made the audience mistakenly believe that Toyokawa Sakiko left CRYCHIC because her father was an alcoholic and entered the police station. However, a more reasonable speculation should be that Sakiko saved the police station’s phone number to her contacts in the later stage, indicating that she had been to the police station many times to bail her father out.

The number “3303-6761-0110” is actually very interesting. The official website of the Akabane Police Station in reality has the phone number 03-3903-0110. It seems that the fictional phone number added the 33 prefix and adjusted the middle number segment, making it impossible to dial this number in Japan where the landline number is 10 digits.

The 0110 at the end of the number is a tacit rule of Japanese telecommunications companies. 0110 and 0119 are exclusively occupied by the police station and the fire department, the two public forces that protect the city. Although there is no explicit regulation for this exclusive rule, as long as the number ends with 0110, ordinary people will trust it relatively.

However, this also gives fraudsters an opportunity to take advantage of it, because the tail number exclusive rule only exists in Japan, and there is no such rule for overseas phone numbers. In recent months, many people have been defrauded by the +803 international area code 0110 number. (But +803 has not been assigned, and I don’t know how the fraudsters used it)

PS: I mentioned earlier in <Example Contact Information> that there are dedicated fictional phone numbers in the United States, which is the number segment (XXX) 555-01XX. This number segment is reserved by telecommunications companies and will not be automatically assigned to society.

However, Japan does not have relevant regulations. Researcher memotan once discovered in the 『Designated Status of Telecommunications Numbers』 that a batch of number segments were marked as “Not Available”. Specifically, there are 03-3000-XXXX, etc., but now, these “Not Available” number segments have been removed, and it is not clear whether they will be enabled in the future. So there is really no good way to represent Japan’s example phone.

Comprehensive and High-Quality Derivative Works Videos

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Derivative works videos have many creative directions. For example, “tracing and modification” usually involves redrawing content for MVs (such as various derivative works of 《Rhythm Heaven Remix 10》); or the broad category of “sound MAD,” which involves editing audio to enrich the music (such as 『Dangerous〇〇』); or story-driven AMV/MAD, which, although also involves picture and audio editing, primarily serves the plot.

So, to “max out” all of the above directions, such works are more difficult to produce, but also more energetic. 『魔女っぽいな』( Like a Witch ) is such a work. It uses the key points of the 《Umineko When They Cry》 plot and sings the song 『神っぽいな』( Like God ).

However, the author did not simply write lyrics for 《Like God》, but made many adjustments based on emotions, which can be regarded as partially using the melody of 《Like God》, so first of all, in terms of music, there is a sense of freshness. Then the picture is rich, the video uses more complex photography, special effects, imitates the game UI, and makes the comics move.

The video also has an interesting design, avoiding direct spoilers. The perfect autopsy and the Trinity are hidden in the picture and are not directly stated. Players who know the overall situation can understand it, but people who have not been exposed to it should not be able to see it. (Unless you read the barrage, comments, or carefully check frame by frame)

However, there are still too few comprehensive and high-quality derivative video works like this. Recently, I only encountered 《Blue Archive》’s 『ブルアカイバー』 and 『ぶるーくらりん』, which are based on the music 《Hypnotism》 and 《Pulsation》 respectively, and add a lot of 《Blue Archive》 content to create derivative works.

The Impoverished Life of the Protagonist in “The Demon Girl Next Door “

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《The Demon Girl Next Door 》is a very special work. Although most of the time it is light and cheerful on the surface, there are also many sad stories in it. For example, the protagonist Yuko Yoshida’s family only consists of her mother Kiyoko Yoshida, her younger sister Ryoko Yoshida, and herself, which is a single-parent family. Moreover, due to a curse, the Yoshida family can only use up to 40,000 yen per month for living expenses. (Medical, education, and heating expenses are exceptions)

Someone calculated the cost of rice. The Yoshida family consumes about 20 kilograms of rice per month, and the cheapest on Amazon costs 7,000 yen. In addition to that, there are eggs and various vegetables, so a food expense of about 20,000 yen is reasonable. For households with heads under 40 years old, the average utility bill is 17,847 yen, so it is still difficult to save money…

Japan does not have a fixed poverty line, because Japan calculates relative poverty. The population with an annual income below 50 % of the national average income is considered relatively poor (but with this calculation, it is impossible to eliminate the poor population). In 2012, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare set the family poverty line at 1.22 million yen of disposable income.

So, judging from the family’s disposable income alone, the Yoshida family is a very poor family. And the work still repeatedly depicts the details of impoverished life, which is rare in two-dimensional works with very high poverty alleviation rates.

Details

S1E01 04:22, Mother Kiyoko says: “We don’t have any rice left this month.” And the curry soup in the scene has almost no vegetables.

S1E01 22:07, Kiyoko buys mushrooms with collectible stickers, which can be used as food for the family, and the stickers can also be exchanged for plates (at a low price).

S1E02 13:05, Yuko’s pocket money increases from 120 to 500 yen/month. 18:46, Kiyoko goes to the supermarket to grab discounted eggs, which cost only 88 yen.

S1E06 13:20, Yuko is able to eat the hamburger steak that Momo Chiyoda failed to make, which is burnt on the outside and not cooked on the inside. The reason is that only food that causes mouth paralysis or that the throat will instinctively spit out cannot be eaten.

S1E10 13:29, Kiyoko collects three sets of stickers and plans to exchange them directly for three plates of the same shape, because the plates available for exchange have different shapes during each period. She didn’t pay attention to this before, and the different plates caused the cabinet to be uneven. (More emphasis on functionality than appearance. Maybe there are many other tableware at home that are included with other products.)

S2E01 15:27, Momo wants to give the Yoshida family a gift, but doesn’t know what to give. Kiyoko appears at this time and says that she doesn’t need to bother, but if she wants to give something, a “rice coupon” would be good.

There are probably other descriptions that reflect impoverished life, so I will record this much for now.

Constrained Japanese TV Animation

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I previously mentioned the various “boilerplate” requirements for 24-minute animations, in addition to the duration of a single episode, there are other reasons that constrain TV animation.

In the 1980s, long-term contracts for popular voice actors were difficult to sign, and viewership ratings became increasingly important to television stations, so choosing half of a semi-fiscal year, i.e., 3 months, as the duration of 1 cour (season) of animation became more and more common. This also made it easier to decide whether to renew or cancel, reducing risks for both television stations and animation studios.

Furthermore, April is the start of the fiscal year, so animations closely followed this timing, resulting in the scheduling of animations in January, April, July, and October. And since January, April, July, and October are close to the seasons, they are referred to as winter, spring, summer, and autumn anime seasons (although there are still some discrepancies).

A year has a little over 52 weeks, and 52 divided by 4 is 13. This was also the number of episodes in 1 cour of early animation, but now animations are more often 12 episodes, because it is easier to split and sell the discs, easily dividing them into 2, 3, or 4 parts, while 13 is a prime number…

Note: The accuracy of this information is not entirely clear, but it is quite reasonable…

Information from: 『クール (放送)』『日本のテレビアニメ作品一覧 (1980年代)』『放送用語の「クール」って？』