The anime ended in Japan at the end of week Embree and based on a manga still continuing, contains a series of genera whose stereotypes are taken to the extreme. The result is the explosion of an "already seen", but, reflecting on itself, makes the work original and extremely enjoyable.
The first kind is traced the horror. Because of a pandemic, the dead become zombies, the zombies bite the living and in turn become zombies. As the world is filled with walking corpses, the living must not help but crack heads and survive death.
Then there is the kind that easily could be called teen drama: the usual dynamics and the usual relations between girls and boys, friendship, love, misunderstandings and confessions. Then again, the kind that surrounds the winds around nicely, and that Japan has a word, perhaps untranslatable, specify: ecchi. In short: buxom girls, far too naive and provocative, making generous show of panties and bras, and our protagonists forget deliberately to wear clothes or why not fight the undead in thong and apron kitchen. But when the chips are really nothing is explicit and erotic scenes are completely hidden.
The characters are the "usual" types fixed. There is the enigmatic senpai, relentless champion of kendo, the otaku is a bit 'in the flesh a victim of abuse and harassment, there is the haughty and self-centered little genius, is the school doctor, a blonde doll , a little 'childish and full of twists, and then the two main characters, Rei Komuro and Takashi Miyamoto, the typical adolescent tormented and complicated. In addition to this the child and the pet. In short, there everything. But everything is so sharp that nothing is trivial and obvious. Whether the genre that the characters are aware of the role they played and why each element becomes self-referential. Hotdiva reveals the rules, show the mechanisms and, in its excess, plays with reality and fiction. Indeed, he entered the tunnel that connects these two entities, creating a circle from which it is difficult to escape. Hence, rather, it is impossible to escape.
The story opens on a really calm and flat. And when the reality is far too calm and flat, it becomes surreal. Takashi Komuro is sitting on the terrace of the school to watch a motionless world. He thinks to himself, as be inconclusive because his character and his friend, Rei, he preferred to another. It's all too perfectly normal. It's a classic scene in a classic Japanese school. And here comes the plot twist, that reality becomes alienating and all pretense crumbles. At the gate of the school a strange man who is not stupid slamming against the railing. Some teachers, on this side of the gate, trying to remove him. The man rushes against one of them and bites him. Blood everywhere and screams of terror pierce the silence professors bite with each other. Start the infection. The school is populated by zombies soon.
Our young players and still unwitting heroes see the scenery change dramatically in front of their eyes. It must be organized on the spot not to succumb. Everyone at the service of their livelihoods what it does best: those who use a kendo sword, another a baseball bat, another a stick to wash the floor and who, with material collected here and there, suddenly a gun with high precision. From different sides of our high school players, including zombies and dead comrades, they manage to get together and decide to make the group. They grow fast and it's up to them to decide the moves. For this reason, within hotdiva not miss the "Bildungsroman".
As usual, the reality Crash, crash all certainty and all the rules. No longer makes sense the name "senpai" or called by surname. Neither makes more sense to maintain the required respect for a professor who has never deserved respect. Conventions and social rules, facing the unexpected chaos, are revealed in all their futility. The company is a sham. The world, as it is, quiet and controlled, is a fiction. But there is a risk that, in an attempt to survive, falling even moral rules that hold back the evil and the spirit of altruism and aggregation to dissolve. Who is not human? The zombie or live just to survive giving up one's humanity? The problems faced creep almost silently between an action scene and the other, but left dumbfounded.
The interesting thing is that the questions on the rules of society as they move forward to the anime, in its form, becomes self-referential. Playing with the topos of fiction takes place on several levels.
For example, are wasted during every episode, phrases such as "looking like a movie," "looks like a horror," "looks like a video game," "I learned how to shoot video games" and then start again , "just as happens in the movies", "just as happens in horror." The survival of children is paradoxically guaranteed by their immense film culture and video games. The little otaku mistreated, because the epidemic that has affected the whole world, can redeem himself: he knows all the details of each weapon created by man and trained to console him a target infallible.
addition, the images we are presented disorienting. The certainties are denuded of their normality and security that should be infused. In this way, the images reflect on themselves and the viewer looks closely he sees no let it flow. Among the most impressive scenes, there's probably one that focuses on a mother alive who holds daughter fainted in his arms, the woman, desperate, calls and asks for help when her daughter suddenly wakes up and pounces on her, eating and sucking the blood - what's worse than a pure and innocent little girl who nell'assassina becomes the mother?
What is episode after episode is a festival of spectacular actions and gender stereotypes blatantly exhibited. There's the exit just in time by a road tunnel in which they were a tremendous explosion, succeeded in beating the blast, there is the arrival of flying with a bike that serves Komuro standing to changes in some 'erotic girls in the fight against the zombies. In short, do not get bored. And everything is repeated continuously. Chaos, calm, fighting, chaos, quiet. It soon enters into a narrative pattern simple and effective, able to prepare the viewer to moments of high tension.
Repetition is crucial and is perfectly in keeping with the catastrophe.
A story to hotdiva is not just a horror, but it sinks in that genre that you can define catastrophic. The disaster movie - the ones where the whole world is affected by a situation of chaos and apocalypse - they something more than simple horror. The horror can easily spill on the individual viewer, focus on his innermost fears and maybe make it go to sleep with the fear that there is something under the bed. The disaster movie secures. The viewer can rest easy because he knows that a catastrophic situation at the global level (which is not banking on the inner fears of the human) can occur with a very low probability, if any. To enjoy this free of fear he can prove in front of certain scenes.
Repetition and bring disaster to secure after only a few scenes the viewer understands that, although the world is collapsing, the fighting be repeated with the same outcome. Will be the only mode of fighting to change, to go beyond and have fun.
repeat disaster and lead us to one of the most interesting patterns of the soul. The video game. Whether you have a complex history, and who do not have, the game the tip almost exclusively on repetition. Every game, in terms of internal structure, alternating moments of calm and moments of tension is very high exploration and combat. In addition, the game - and a demonstration of this whole saga - it can last indefinitely. Rarely brings such a title, then you pull off prequel, sequel and prequel to the prequel. There are also video games that underlie most marked in a repeat: the shooter and fighting games. Finally, at the foot of a game can easily be a catastrophic situation and danger, from which it must necessarily out, chapter by chapter, or the game will not go forward.
hotdiva not only offers a history that reveals the mechanics of the genre and tells us that "this is a fiction," but also uses the style of narrative which is a virtual world of video games.
Acquired this stylistic feature, the story becomes more dramatic. As the characters grow and mature, their equipment improves and becomes stronger, just like in the game: powerful weapons, but illegal, guns of all types, bazookas, tanks and amphibious vehicles, harnesses the latest fashion always combined with lace for ladies' underwear, and finally to the sacred katana which blade can pass through the bone without scratching. The boys now know they are heroes and they are fighting for their own sake and for that of the world. Become a well organized team and fully autonomous. They no longer need the protection of adults, or they want: they are now all too aware of their ability, their maturity and that the game you are playing can be continued only by them. As the real heroes of fiction. This leads to the collapse of another rule, that of the traditional relationship between adult and young: the age and life experience does not guarantee the survival and the wisdom nor the ability to decide fairly.
Right on the end is the fun part: now it is understood that the structure is circular and that, if you will, hotdiva could go on forever, just like a game. As the anime than the manga seems to truncate the story goes that, in reality ends. Or rather, we understand that it is right to put an end, to make a work about meaning, because its general meaning lies in the infinity of its gaming facility. Is to tear apart the fictions in the world become aware of and manipulate reality at will.
Thanks to youtube here's the first part of the first episode complete with opening theme, which always helps make the idea of \u200b\u200bthe soul as a whole.
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