Super Milk-chan
Some strange ads have been airing on Cartoon Network lately, supposedly about some sort of series called "Super Milk-chan". I initially couldn't believe this was in fact genuine anime, since I'd never heard of the series and the brightly colored, and simple yet highly stylized characters looked more like the Powerpuff Girls than anything Japanese. Also, this show wasn't airing on Saturday night, which is traditionally when Adult Swim shows genuine anime. Some sort of American parody of anime, perhaps? Last night, completely by accident, I caught the first episode. Sure enough, the credits revealed that the show was indeed a Japanese production. another unusual thing was the ADV logo at the beginning--has Cartoon Network ever shown anything from ADV before? I've just done some internet research, and was surprised at how many Milk-Chan websites exist. Apparently this is a sequel to a run of fourteen eight-minute segments that aired back in 1998. Described by reviewer John Yung as "the product of a demented genius or bored animators (or both)... Milk-Chan has it's own unique spin on humor". The series employs parody to a "blatant extent", and, like Excel Saga, is a "truly bizarre anime show". "Milk-chan is indeed funny, but sometimes it's too bizarre for its own good". I get the impression that a lot of the humor may be lost on those unfamiliar with life in Japan, and that the profanity has been toned down somewhat for Milk-chan's Cartoon Network run (she repeatedly used the word "dumbass" last night). Perhaps the idea was to expand on the channel's pack of pathetic superhero shows, such as Birdman and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. If the ads leading up to the premiere hadn't been so confusing, I'd have had a fresh VCR tape in the machine last night!
Having now watched a couple of episodes on a rented DVD (each DVD includes some of the short episodes along with the half-hour ones), a couple thoughts come to mind. The uncensored DVD version didn't really feature a whole lot more profanity than the episodes beeing aired on Cartoon Network--maybe one or two questionable lines per episode. The dub version actually seems more vulgar than the subbed one (episode two featured the "F" word). Most important, this series *really* needs a set of Vid-notes, as in Excel Saga and Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, to explain the numerous Japanese cultural tie-ins. For example, Milk repeatedly tricks her landlord into going away by claiming that certain personalities are in town, but I haven't the slightest idea who these people are or why the landlord's being a fan of them would be amusing. This is, after all, a "satire of [Japanese] pop culture", and how many of us can claim to be familiar with that? For this reason, and because DVD extras are minimal, and also because it has shown up on Cartoon Network (in censored form, of course), I get the impression that ADV didn't exactly consider Milk-chan a high priority project (then again, maybe I'm being too cynical; maybe Milk-chan being shown on Cartoon Network represents ADV's willingness to "sacrifice" one decent show in order to stir up interest in it's other anime titles. Perhaps it's a mistake to assume that any anime that is shown on Cartoon Network will neccessarily be mediocre [despite titles like Blue Gender]. After all, who would have expected such a brilliant show as Cowboy Bebop to show up on Cartoon Network?).
The thought occured to me recently that the very fact that anime almost always has to be censored in order to air on Cartoon Network suggests why I prefer to watch Japanese anime over American TV programs--because, in it's original form, it's *not* censored, and it doesn't have to be "politically correct". You just don't get this kind of unconventional entertainment from the media here in the US!
Last updated Monday, January 10 2005. Created Friday, November 12 2004.
|
