Archive for the 'Slice of Life' Category

Venish

“It wasn’t as wet as I was anticipating.”

This time a few days ago, I was in Venice. (The one in Italy.)

I was told about a month earlier that I’d be taking an Easter holiday in Venice. Unlike previous Easter holidays, this excited me. Last year’s trip to Pisa was well-received, but a severely late flight on the way back was an experience that I would not want to repeat. The holiday a year prior to that took place in Amsterdam. It’s probably a lovely place if the weather’s not torrentially snowy. And if you’re a pothead.

So when I heard that we would be visiting Venice, I thought that this time we’d got it right. I only knew Pisa for its leaning tower and Amsterdam because it was a lyric in that song about a little mouse with clogs on. Venice, on the other hand, is a place that I had been made all too aware of through my exposure to anime.

I was warned before I went that it would be packed with tourists, possibly Japanese. It’s possible that Japan has some fascination with the city, but it’s likely that it’s a worldwide thing. Whether or not the Japanese in particular have a fascination with the Venetian city of Venice (it could well be universal – Brother told me that authors who have been to Venice generally write about Venice), there are several notable Japanese things with Venice in them. And while I could dedicate a blog post to the heart-wrenching, life-changing experience that is Pokémon Heroes (set in the sunny city of “Altomare” – like Venice but with Pokémon and CGI excessives), I will instead focus on Aria.

It goes like this: In a post-apocalyptic world, mankind is forced to abandon mother Earth and colonise new planets through the magic science of terraforming. One such planet to’ve undergone this operation is Mars (probably because it was the closest one that they could find), now renamed Aqua (presumably because it’s got water on it now). It’s important to note that this backstory is only alluded to in the show itself; Aria is actually a slice-of-life story about a group of young, modestly-attractive female gondolier operators living in the city of New Venice1, Aqua. They live their lives. They wander the city. Sometimes they discover things. Everyone’s happy all of the time.

It’s very relaxing.

Aria has the odd distinction of being both underexposed and overrated, but it’s by no means a bad show. Providing, of course, that you are not driven insane from the constant annoyances of the repetitive, repetitive, repetitive catchphrases (“No sappy lines allowed!” “Ehh?” “My, my! Ehehe!” AT LEAST TWICE PER EPISODE) and the awkward antics of series mascot ‘President Aria’, a disturbingly personic cat-thing that looks more like a dog-thing who spends most of his time being as “cute” as possible. It’s a jolly good thing that the rest of the show makes up for these potential blood-pressure-raising shortcomings with its gentle pacing, charming soundtrack and general lack of plot. If nothing else, Aria proves that filler is not always a bad thing.

But there is a problem. Aria is set in New Venice. Not Regular Venice. Neither is Pokémon Heroes. In fact, very few of these Venice-based fictions are actually set in Venice itself. They’re always some idyllic utopian place based on Venice, liberties taken as the story requires. In short, these stories take place in what Venice should be like.

And even though I knew all of this, I had set my expectations unreasonably high. I had managed to convince myself that Venice was a place where miracles actually happen. A soul-cleansing place of purity, untainted by the progress of humanity.

This, as you must be aware, was not the case. Rather than an escape from reality, Venice was just another facet of it. I didn’t mind so much about the thousands of tourists piled into the scaffolding-enrobed St. Mark’s Square everyday, but even the quieter residential areas recommended by the guidebook had people there. Brother said that he doesn’t like being away from humanity for too long; I’m the opposite. I suppose that complaining about the level of tourism during the first major holiday of the year is just being picky.

As it turns out, Aria is more a depiction of what Japanese life, rather than Venezian life, embodies. New Venice celebrates the same holidays as the Japanese; they have the same customs, the same expressions, the same language (although the latter’s justifiable). In the second series, they dedicated a whole episode to New Venice’s postal service (far more efficient than Italy’s postal service) that appeared to be based directly on the Japanese post office, even down to the logo. Must be great if you’re Japanese. Familiarity with Aria does not equal familiarity with Venice.

Aria aside, Venice wasn’t as wet as I was anticipating. The weather forecast predicted a wide range of rains throughout the holiday, but this didn’t happen, making the weather, at least, correlate with the more idyllic depictions of the city (if dangerously high sun levels are your idea of idyllic weather). But I pictured Venice as being almost entirely laced with canals. I imagined paths at sea level. I imagined the impossibility of getting around on foot. I imagined not being able to find a large patch of land without a significant body of water a couple of metres away. Once again, I had set my expectations too high. I found Venice to be a highly walkable city, clocking up over 30,000 steps on one day. (Step counts brought to you by the Pokéwalker device. I’m not a Pokémon fan, by the way.) After a poor night’s sleep upon arrival, I strove to thoroughly tire myself out during the day to ensure peaceful sleep on subsequent nights. I set myself the goal of walking to each “corner” of Venice, but my enthusiasm was significantly diminished after a distressing discovery in the north-west corner of the island: an industrial district complete with train station, sky shuttle and car park. Cars on Venice‽ This is madness!

I won’t say that I was disappointed. Like I said, I knew what to expect. It wasn’t the first time that I’d been to Italy. Even so, it wasn’t the same. One thing that impressed me in Pisa was the ubiquity of anime and comics. One channel (we had satellite television in the hotel) was showing GTO at 11 in the morning. If I was familiar with GTO, I’m sure that I’d've been impressed. In Venice, however, we only had analogue. (We didn’t watch much TV.) At the airport newsagents last year, I was impressed to see a wide variety of graphic novels on sale alongside the newspapers; at Venice Marco Polo’s newsagency, I was disappointed to see a much smaller selection hidden away in a corner. Okay, so maybe I was a little disappointed this year.

But I don’t regret going. Venice isn’t a magical place in either the literal or the figurative sense, but if you’ve the money (like all good tourist traps, prices are significantly higher in Venice than in Tesco) I’m not going to ruin your fun.

Just don’t expect a miracle.

Incidentally, I found out that Aria is Italian for Air. I walked past a sign that said “Air conditioning” in both languages. ㋼

  1. The subtitles use the transliteration Neo-Venezia. The “Neo-” prefix appears to be the Japanese equivalent of the English “New” suffix, and Venezia means Venice, so New Venice is the way that it should be written. Probably. Ignore me. []

The Potential Iguanodon and the Onion

“ROOOOOAAAAAAAAR! I am the Potential Iguanodon!” said the Potential Iguanodon to the Onion. Such was his usual form of introduction. “Hey, Onion, I wrote another short story. Wanna read it?” This was not a so much question as it was an order.

The Onion, rightly sceptical based on the Iguanodon’s previous attempts, made a point of ignoring this. “What’s it about?”

“You’ll find out,” the Iguanodon persisted, so that the Onion was obliged to take the still-warm sheet of printer paper. The story went as follows:

“A pane of glass separates me from Them. It’s probably not enough to hold Them for long. Glass is like the heart; eventually, it will be broken. Trying hard to ignore my reflection – each time our eyes meet, I feel it judging me – I perceive in the dark of night a shape moving. A monster. Slinking along the garden path to get me, mumbling incomprehensibly to itself all the way. Cold-hearted with fear, I flick the switch for the outdoor lights. “Darn it!” I hear the monster shout, and then, remembering its status as a monster, a torrent of language inadvisable for anyone – of this world or otherwise. Noticing the rate at which it is decomposing in the light, the monster makes a hasty getaway. I will leave the lights on, I think, but watch in silent horror as the bulbs flicker and die, one by one, and the darkness outside brings back my reflection. “Darn it,” I whisper, restraining my more monster-like tendencies. My heart is a block of ice in my chest, able only to smash or melt away completely as more shapes pile into the garden. Perhaps time will stop if I grow colder and colder, freeze up through and through. It’s a case of sinking into my own darkness or theirs. The glass breaks, and so do I.”

The Onion carefully lowered the sheet to see the Iguanodon’s big toothy grin. “So, whaddaya think? Is it good? Deep, ain’t it?” The Onion had to admit, the quality of writing had improved since the days of “Tom And His Big Elephant That Wants To Be A Pilot But Couldn’t Because It’s Is Big And Was Heavy,” but still…

“There’s one thing I’ll never understand,” the Onion explained. “People like being depressed. They have this strange idea that depressing things are profound and that profound things must be, by nature, depressing. They think that, if you look hard enough, you’ll always end up sad. They think that naivety is being happy, and being happy is naive. That attitude is just lazy. It’s the easy way of getting through life. Don’t achieve anything, don’t strive for the good things in life. Just wave them away, saying they’re superficial and untrue.” She sighed deeply. “People want to be happy, right? You’ve got to look past all the sad things. Learn from them, but don’t let them crowd your vision. You have to actually try, to learn how to really see. Maybe it’s just easier for me, being an Onion.” She looked right at the Iguanodon and his beady eyes. “Let me tell you something deeply personal. When I’m older, I want to have lots of wrinkles. Deep ones, smile lines on either side of my mouth. Until then, I’ve just got to keep on smiling. I’ll be able to point to each one and say “This is from the time I saw a dog in a car smile at me,” and “This is from the time we saw that film and couldn’t stop laughing for hours,” and “This is from the time we walked through that restaurant dressed as pirates.” I’ll be able to point to each one and say “These make a life worth living.””

The Potential Iguanodon was stunned. “So… Does that mean you don’t like it?”

The Onion laughed, not at him, or with him, but for him. “You’ve got potential, I’ll tell you that. But for the moment, put those big teeth of yours to use and give me a smile.”

The Iguanodon did. “Onion? I want to have wrinkles too.”

“We’ll have wrinkles together.”

Quite forgetting about glass and monsters and the night, they both started laughing. “Whoa,” said the Iguanodon. “The sky sure is huge.”

“Yeah,” said the Onion. “I bet that if we tried hard enough, we could fall right into it.”