Insufficient Direction by Moyoco Anno, published in the United
States by Vertical Inc., $14.95 US/$16.95
CND
Moyoco Anno is a manga artist whose body of work stars
everything from cutesy magical girls to red-light district courtesans to modern corporate women, and who happens to be married to fellow creative Hideaki Anno. Anno the filmmaker is not only the postmodernist
director of, among many other things, GAINAX’s Evangelion, but is also wholly
committed to the full otaku lifestyle. Dominated by his obsession with the
colorful, childish, giant-monster-infested Showa-era end of the entertainment
spectrum, Hideaki Anno’s all-consuming otaku immersion has arguably led to a
successful entertainment career, but has also has rendered him incapable of interacting
with the “straight” world. Dragging him kicking and screaming into the
real-life situations of marriage, home ownership, and other real-life grownup
adult details is a daunting task for anyone. Especially when you’re inexplicably
drawing yourself as a crazy-eyed toddler in footy PJs.
This is the premise of Moyoco Anno’s Insufficient Direction,
a collection of short, sharp stories detailing the trials and tribulations of
“Rompers”- Moyoco’s toddler stand-in- and her life together with “Director” as
their differing lifestyle choices meet and clash.
As a guy roughly in the same age range and sharing a lot of
predilections as “Director”, it’s downright appalling to see him tooling along
in the car singing along to the X-Bomber theme song. Because… I do that. I too was obsessed with Ultraman as a child
and know way too much about super-robot cartoons and who directed what World
Masterpiece Theater production of which juvenile literary classic, and it is
profoundly unsettling watching my life unfold in a manga written and drawn by
complete strangers who, so far as I know, are not spying on me. Still, the parallels are ominous. “Rompers”
and “Director” were married, as my cartoonist wife and I were, in 2002 – and
while neither groom sported a Kamen Rider costume, as shown in the manga, they
DID distribute their own doujinshi to the guests (why didn’t we think of
that?). The couple faces the same
questions many of us face today; what to do with the piles of DVDs and LDs? How
best to handle the pot belly that results from the sedentary otaku
lifestyle? Where in their tiny apartment
will the Kamen Rider figures go? How should a faithful wife react when – again,
ominously paralleling my own life – she first sees her husband’s goofy amateur
films? Thankfully for my own sanity, every time Insufficient Direction hits too
close to home we come across a sequence where “Rompers” tries to convince “Director”
that changing underwear and showering every day is critical, which I assure you
is NOT an issue around HERE.
As Insufficient Direction and
the couple’s relationship progresses, “Rompers” succumbs to some kind of otaku
version of Stockholm Syndrome and starts peppering her speech with references
to Akage no Anne while joining “Director” in belting out the Hurricane Polymar
theme song. Will she become, finally, an Ota-Wife? Is this even a thing? How
far should a spouse go in adopting the quirks of their partner? Can a manga really deal with the mysteries of
the human heart and at the same time explain what an Ultra Bracelet is and why
somebody would spend 140000 yen on one?
Moyoco Anno’s direct linework
carries a lot of information and her expressive characters are able to
communicate every emotion in spite of being drawn as swirly-eyed babies or
hidden behind Director-san’s glasses. Their Felix-and-Oscar relationship makes for
entertaining reading no matter which side of the Otaku Divide you’re on, and
this semi-autobiographical roller-coaster ride is just getting started; the
anime version of Insufficient Direction premiered April 3 2014. We can only
hope a new generation of obsessives will devote valuable brain cells to
memorizing every detail of the life of “Rompers” and “Director”.
Moyoco Anno will be appearing at the Toronto Comics Arts Festival May 10-11, 2014. Attendance is free. See you there!
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6 comments:
Hideaki Anno actually knocked up someone and fathered a child?
Well, wonders never cease...
nope, no Anno-kids yet. They do discuss the possibility, though. Their only dependent, a cat, is named "Mighty Jack".
Hopefully if they do, they won't press drawing on them like the Crumbs!
Mighty Jack is an arcade game, if memory serves...
Nope, Mighty Jack, at least the one the cat's named after, is a Tsuburaya live-action super-spy series. I hope the cat is more interesting. Mighty Jack the show is kinda tedious.
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