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Aug. 13th, 2012 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alas_a_llamaLet's talk about when a series has two writers who, perhaps, don't quite see eye to eye.
I say this because Kamen Rider Fourze, which I've loved dearly for this past year, is coming to an end, to be replaced with next year's iteration, Kamen Rider Wizard. Because while I loved it dearly, its greatest, most crippling flaw is that it's two writers - Kazuki Nakashima and Riku Sanjo - really don't see eye to eye on the characters.
(There's a third writer, Hasegawa, but he just stares at his hands a lot and hides in cupboards, crooning about the wolves.)
Mostly because Riku Sanjo has a much more simplistic, slightly reductive way of writing characters than Nakashima, who loves nuance like it's his own son. Also, Sanjo hates women. I'm not sure he realises this, but it's pretty clear to everybody else that Sanjo has some severe woman issues. I mean, he's no Stephen Moffat or Christopher Nolan, but he wouldn't be out of place in the same bar as them, if you catch my drift.
Four characters suffer most from this, so I'm going to use them as the examples - Kisaragi Gentaro, Joujima Yuki, Kazashiro Miu and Gamou Mitsuaki.
Japanese TV writing tends to rely a lot on set archetypes. I am hesitating to necessarily say stereotypes, although those certainly play a hefty role, but archetypes. Set, predefined characters which can be shuffled into the various roles required of them - and the audience can quickly determine who this character is, and what their deal is, and get a handle of them quite quickly.
Sometimes this works to great effect - Digimon Adventure, for example, had a whale of a time with it, stuffing nine archetypes into a small space and watching them interact. The characters may not have been especially nuanced, but the core of the show was in their bouncing off each other.
And - like any convention in fiction - there are also a lot of writers who take advantage of this to play with these archetypes in interesting ways. Nakashima is one of these writers. Sanjo is not.
I'm going to go through those four characters one by one to demonstrate, so here goes.
Kisaragi Gentaro: The archetype is the enthused, dim delinquent, who is very happy and excited by everything, but generally incredibly stupid, only really good at violence, probably on a fast track to some kind of dead end job.
Nakashima writes him as a young, exuberantly energetic worthy, whose academic failure is balanced out by what is probably best described as 'wisdom' - while he is academically very poor, he is intensely observant and adept with people, equipped with an incredibly strong intuition, and a rather devious cunning. While preoccupied with friendship, he has a nuanced and somber view of it - and doesn't necessarily make friends easily. A peculiarity of Nakashima's writing is that he tends to render Gentaro's friendship with the other main characters his age as guilelessly semi-romantic and flirtatious, acting more like a communal boyfriend, meaning that you can actually ship him with any, some, or all of the cast and it will always be completely believable.
Sanjo writes him as a young, exuberantly energetic moron, completely oblivious both academically and socially, needing to be reminded of even basic facets of his friends' situations and personality - usually, oddly, by Kengo, who is meant to be academically brilliant but not wise or sociable, per se. He is obsessed with friendship, declaring himself friends with inanimate objects.
Joujima Yuki: The archetype is the happy-go-lucky, exuberant and hyperactive girl. Tends to be eccentric, either preoccupied to distraction with something, or just generally strange. Little understanding of boundaries or etiquette.
Nakashima writes her as a fiercely determined young woman who has decided that she's going to become an astronaut. She is preoccupied with it in a constructive way, organising trips to the space museum, and composing a song about the Hayabusa Satellite to increase interest in space travel, and her determination, and the understanding of the challenges required, is reflected in the approval and admiration of former astronaut and school chairman Gamou, who engages in a discussion of his book with her, and personally seeks her out as his right-hand woman, recognising himself in her. She is happy-go-lucky, exuberant, and hyperactive, and understands etiquette, but doesn't really care all that much.
Sanjo writes her as being totally incapable of answering a single question on an astronaut training course entrance exam, preoccupied with a Hayabusa puppet, and with 'Rocket Gods', and prone to running away at a moment's notice. Nice one, Sanko.
Kazashiro Miu: The archetype is the Most Popular Girl In School. Iiiii think we all know this one.
Nakashima writes her as a natural leader that people gravitate toward, who is absolutely self-assured in her ability to lead, almost always calm and level-headed, and completely fearless. She is abrasive, rather arrogant, and a little entitled, but tries her hardest to recognise and rein in those traits, and recognises the talents and qualities of others.
Sanjo writes her as barely there in the background. When he does bring her to the foreground, Sanjo seems to have a bizarre preoccupation with the idea that she is 'stringing along' and 'playing games with' Shun, her ex-boyfriend. This is bizarre in part because it is absent from Nakashima's scripts - their relationship is the result of social pressure, and their break-up is completely amicable, and has no bearing on their future interactions, in his episodes.
Gamou Mitsuaki: The archetype is essentially the Demon Headmaster. The main villain.
Nakashima writes him as as a warm, friendly and charismatic man who is genuinely invested in running his school, and in fulfilling the potential of his students, going so far as to personally organise astronaut training schemes using his connections as a former astronaut, and to personally cook the meals on the school's menu so that he can vet them in advance for nutritional content and taste before going out to the students. He admires the tenacity of his students, even when they are working against his plans, and goes out of his way to reward their efforts, compromising his own interests to do so (such as providing Gentaro with the information to soothe the gaping paranoia and personal issues of Erin Suda/Aquarius, one of Gamou's henchmen, and calling ahead to the space centre so that he could get proof of this).
In spite of this, he has no moral qualms about turning some of his students into monsters in order to further their plans - because he doesn't see being a monster as a bad thing, and sees the choice to become one (because it is always a choice, save for, I think, two times) as indicative of a 'pioneer spirit' like his own.
The metaphor of the sun is often used - principally as a source of warmth and light that will burn you if you get too close.
Sanjo writes him as unremittingly evil, merely pretending to be warm, friendly, and invested in his students as part of a complicated ruse to keep anybody from suspecting his involvement in the whole 'monster' thing. He frequently puts down his henchmen, and threatens them if they don't do well. The metaphor of the sun is also often used - as a central body that everything else revolves around. The idea of a 'pioneer spirit' is also mentioned - but unlike Nakashima, Sanjo writes this justification as being one of compulsion, that Gamou has a 'pioneer spirit' that will not permit him to not do evil things for his.
It's pretty damaging when your writers don't see eye to eye, for two reasons - firstly, it's inconsistent, which is frustrating for a viewer. Every time Sanjo appeared and pulled out the 'lulz, Yuki is such a moron' card, I felt like snapping at my laptop, because the show had gone to great pains to establish her as an above-average intellect pushed to greatness by her determination, as a light-sided mirror to Gamou. The idea, which Sanjo pushed fiercely in one episode arc, that Yuki was somehow unable to correctly answer even one question on an Astronaut Learning Scheme Exam was absurd, and the justification given by many fanboys that it would be 'maths and science' not general knowledge about space even more so, because Yuki's character is set up as one who would not only understand the importance of maths and science to space travel, but would doggedly study them until she was an expert, even if she didn't have a natural knack for them (and we have no reason to necessarily think she doesn't).
Similarly, there have been a lot of accusations hurled around fandom lately that Sanjo doesn't understand Gentaro's character - and I agree, he doesn't. I query whether he really understands the show he's writing for.
The thing is, Riki Sanjo has written for Kamen Rider before - he wrote Kamen Rider Double, which was a beautifully made series with interesting characters, although also with a hefty dose of misogyny that grated, rather. But the characters of Double weren't nuanced - they weren't all one-note archetypes, necessarily, but that's not the same as nuance. If Nakashima is very good at fleshing out a reductive archetype and revealing the hidden depths there, Sanjo's alternative has, in his own work, been to smush two archetypes together and see how they conflict with each other.
And that's interesting! I have a TDKR essay in progress where I talk about how interesting that is, and use Sanjo as an example. But it's also ultimately a very didactic, inhuman way of writing, because you're still not playing with that archetype and humanising your characters, you're just playing the archetypes completely straight in close proximity.
The second problem with writers not seeing eye to eye is that it's the death of character development. I've seen shows where the writers seemed to disagree on what they wanted to happen, and so every episode would operate almost like 'keep-away' setting up what Writer A wanted to happen and trying to make it so that Writer B couldn't reverse it without looking like a hack, before in the next episode Writer B would reverse it and then try to set it up so that Writer A couldn't reverse that.
That's not necessarily what's happening here. No, what's happening here is really the inconsistency problem again - the characters can't develop because the writers can't agree on where they're developing from. Gamou's best friend is dead, having turned traitor against Gamou, and now he's going off the rails slightly, seeking to turn Yuki into a new right-hand man/best friend, because she's so much like him! What will happen next?! Well, apparently Gamou is fine now, and cackling maniacally about how he's never had any friends. His best friend's betrayal has made him more wary of other henchmen betraying him, though! So that's development, right?
Oh.
Oh, okay.
Well, yes. I suppose. Those are both character development. But they're not the same character development - one path has stopped abruptly, to be replaced by a completely different one, with no explanation. This is not good writing.
In conclusion, if you're doing a TV show, make sure you writers agree with each other, or can at least come to a working compromise.
Also, this may be a thing. Which'll be getting an EP tonight. Or somesuch.
I say this because Kamen Rider Fourze, which I've loved dearly for this past year, is coming to an end, to be replaced with next year's iteration, Kamen Rider Wizard. Because while I loved it dearly, its greatest, most crippling flaw is that it's two writers - Kazuki Nakashima and Riku Sanjo - really don't see eye to eye on the characters.
(There's a third writer, Hasegawa, but he just stares at his hands a lot and hides in cupboards, crooning about the wolves.)
Mostly because Riku Sanjo has a much more simplistic, slightly reductive way of writing characters than Nakashima, who loves nuance like it's his own son. Also, Sanjo hates women. I'm not sure he realises this, but it's pretty clear to everybody else that Sanjo has some severe woman issues. I mean, he's no Stephen Moffat or Christopher Nolan, but he wouldn't be out of place in the same bar as them, if you catch my drift.
Four characters suffer most from this, so I'm going to use them as the examples - Kisaragi Gentaro, Joujima Yuki, Kazashiro Miu and Gamou Mitsuaki.
Japanese TV writing tends to rely a lot on set archetypes. I am hesitating to necessarily say stereotypes, although those certainly play a hefty role, but archetypes. Set, predefined characters which can be shuffled into the various roles required of them - and the audience can quickly determine who this character is, and what their deal is, and get a handle of them quite quickly.
Sometimes this works to great effect - Digimon Adventure, for example, had a whale of a time with it, stuffing nine archetypes into a small space and watching them interact. The characters may not have been especially nuanced, but the core of the show was in their bouncing off each other.
And - like any convention in fiction - there are also a lot of writers who take advantage of this to play with these archetypes in interesting ways. Nakashima is one of these writers. Sanjo is not.
I'm going to go through those four characters one by one to demonstrate, so here goes.
Kisaragi Gentaro: The archetype is the enthused, dim delinquent, who is very happy and excited by everything, but generally incredibly stupid, only really good at violence, probably on a fast track to some kind of dead end job.
Nakashima writes him as a young, exuberantly energetic worthy, whose academic failure is balanced out by what is probably best described as 'wisdom' - while he is academically very poor, he is intensely observant and adept with people, equipped with an incredibly strong intuition, and a rather devious cunning. While preoccupied with friendship, he has a nuanced and somber view of it - and doesn't necessarily make friends easily. A peculiarity of Nakashima's writing is that he tends to render Gentaro's friendship with the other main characters his age as guilelessly semi-romantic and flirtatious, acting more like a communal boyfriend, meaning that you can actually ship him with any, some, or all of the cast and it will always be completely believable.
Sanjo writes him as a young, exuberantly energetic moron, completely oblivious both academically and socially, needing to be reminded of even basic facets of his friends' situations and personality - usually, oddly, by Kengo, who is meant to be academically brilliant but not wise or sociable, per se. He is obsessed with friendship, declaring himself friends with inanimate objects.
Joujima Yuki: The archetype is the happy-go-lucky, exuberant and hyperactive girl. Tends to be eccentric, either preoccupied to distraction with something, or just generally strange. Little understanding of boundaries or etiquette.
Nakashima writes her as a fiercely determined young woman who has decided that she's going to become an astronaut. She is preoccupied with it in a constructive way, organising trips to the space museum, and composing a song about the Hayabusa Satellite to increase interest in space travel, and her determination, and the understanding of the challenges required, is reflected in the approval and admiration of former astronaut and school chairman Gamou, who engages in a discussion of his book with her, and personally seeks her out as his right-hand woman, recognising himself in her. She is happy-go-lucky, exuberant, and hyperactive, and understands etiquette, but doesn't really care all that much.
Sanjo writes her as being totally incapable of answering a single question on an astronaut training course entrance exam, preoccupied with a Hayabusa puppet, and with 'Rocket Gods', and prone to running away at a moment's notice. Nice one, Sanko.
Kazashiro Miu: The archetype is the Most Popular Girl In School. Iiiii think we all know this one.
Nakashima writes her as a natural leader that people gravitate toward, who is absolutely self-assured in her ability to lead, almost always calm and level-headed, and completely fearless. She is abrasive, rather arrogant, and a little entitled, but tries her hardest to recognise and rein in those traits, and recognises the talents and qualities of others.
Sanjo writes her as barely there in the background. When he does bring her to the foreground, Sanjo seems to have a bizarre preoccupation with the idea that she is 'stringing along' and 'playing games with' Shun, her ex-boyfriend. This is bizarre in part because it is absent from Nakashima's scripts - their relationship is the result of social pressure, and their break-up is completely amicable, and has no bearing on their future interactions, in his episodes.
Gamou Mitsuaki: The archetype is essentially the Demon Headmaster. The main villain.
Nakashima writes him as as a warm, friendly and charismatic man who is genuinely invested in running his school, and in fulfilling the potential of his students, going so far as to personally organise astronaut training schemes using his connections as a former astronaut, and to personally cook the meals on the school's menu so that he can vet them in advance for nutritional content and taste before going out to the students. He admires the tenacity of his students, even when they are working against his plans, and goes out of his way to reward their efforts, compromising his own interests to do so (such as providing Gentaro with the information to soothe the gaping paranoia and personal issues of Erin Suda/Aquarius, one of Gamou's henchmen, and calling ahead to the space centre so that he could get proof of this).
In spite of this, he has no moral qualms about turning some of his students into monsters in order to further their plans - because he doesn't see being a monster as a bad thing, and sees the choice to become one (because it is always a choice, save for, I think, two times) as indicative of a 'pioneer spirit' like his own.
The metaphor of the sun is often used - principally as a source of warmth and light that will burn you if you get too close.
Sanjo writes him as unremittingly evil, merely pretending to be warm, friendly, and invested in his students as part of a complicated ruse to keep anybody from suspecting his involvement in the whole 'monster' thing. He frequently puts down his henchmen, and threatens them if they don't do well. The metaphor of the sun is also often used - as a central body that everything else revolves around. The idea of a 'pioneer spirit' is also mentioned - but unlike Nakashima, Sanjo writes this justification as being one of compulsion, that Gamou has a 'pioneer spirit' that will not permit him to not do evil things for his.
It's pretty damaging when your writers don't see eye to eye, for two reasons - firstly, it's inconsistent, which is frustrating for a viewer. Every time Sanjo appeared and pulled out the 'lulz, Yuki is such a moron' card, I felt like snapping at my laptop, because the show had gone to great pains to establish her as an above-average intellect pushed to greatness by her determination, as a light-sided mirror to Gamou. The idea, which Sanjo pushed fiercely in one episode arc, that Yuki was somehow unable to correctly answer even one question on an Astronaut Learning Scheme Exam was absurd, and the justification given by many fanboys that it would be 'maths and science' not general knowledge about space even more so, because Yuki's character is set up as one who would not only understand the importance of maths and science to space travel, but would doggedly study them until she was an expert, even if she didn't have a natural knack for them (and we have no reason to necessarily think she doesn't).
Similarly, there have been a lot of accusations hurled around fandom lately that Sanjo doesn't understand Gentaro's character - and I agree, he doesn't. I query whether he really understands the show he's writing for.
The thing is, Riki Sanjo has written for Kamen Rider before - he wrote Kamen Rider Double, which was a beautifully made series with interesting characters, although also with a hefty dose of misogyny that grated, rather. But the characters of Double weren't nuanced - they weren't all one-note archetypes, necessarily, but that's not the same as nuance. If Nakashima is very good at fleshing out a reductive archetype and revealing the hidden depths there, Sanjo's alternative has, in his own work, been to smush two archetypes together and see how they conflict with each other.
And that's interesting! I have a TDKR essay in progress where I talk about how interesting that is, and use Sanjo as an example. But it's also ultimately a very didactic, inhuman way of writing, because you're still not playing with that archetype and humanising your characters, you're just playing the archetypes completely straight in close proximity.
The second problem with writers not seeing eye to eye is that it's the death of character development. I've seen shows where the writers seemed to disagree on what they wanted to happen, and so every episode would operate almost like 'keep-away' setting up what Writer A wanted to happen and trying to make it so that Writer B couldn't reverse it without looking like a hack, before in the next episode Writer B would reverse it and then try to set it up so that Writer A couldn't reverse that.
That's not necessarily what's happening here. No, what's happening here is really the inconsistency problem again - the characters can't develop because the writers can't agree on where they're developing from. Gamou's best friend is dead, having turned traitor against Gamou, and now he's going off the rails slightly, seeking to turn Yuki into a new right-hand man/best friend, because she's so much like him! What will happen next?! Well, apparently Gamou is fine now, and cackling maniacally about how he's never had any friends. His best friend's betrayal has made him more wary of other henchmen betraying him, though! So that's development, right?
Oh.
Oh, okay.
Well, yes. I suppose. Those are both character development. But they're not the same character development - one path has stopped abruptly, to be replaced by a completely different one, with no explanation. This is not good writing.
In conclusion, if you're doing a TV show, make sure you writers agree with each other, or can at least come to a working compromise.
Also, this may be a thing. Which'll be getting an EP tonight. Or somesuch.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-14 01:19 am (UTC)Also, I love your media analysis and want to roll around in it like a big snuggly thoughtblanket.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-14 07:56 am (UTC)Also, :D :D :D.