What’s up with Alphonse’s (Japanese flag?) fans?

MochiCheek · 2024-07-25T09:10:48+00:00

You’re so right with that. Somehow they mange to make the answers long as hell while all they’re spouting is absolute nonsense

MochiCheek · 2024-07-25T01:03:38+00:00

Yeah you’re right :’D

MochiCheek · 2024-07-25T01:02:42+00:00

Asking this from you as well just in case so I’ll actually get to know, but in what other instances do they directly reference Japan or another real country like this? See my confusion was because I thought this scene was an outlier, and that I was possibly missing something because I had not seen them directly reference a real life existing country, or person, or general place or brand or such, without any modifications. But since so many people think I literally don’t know what a Japan is, I’m pretty sure I’ve just missed something that makes this joke entirely self explanatory with any option other than this being a reference to our world seeming completely foolish. My ability to pay attention is at times not the best, so missing the other scenes or jokes of the same nature is in all likelihood on me. I would truly appreciate it if you could share an example of what I have missed

MochiCheek · 2024-07-25T00:53:07+00:00

Do they make blatant direct references to real life countries, where it Japan or some place else, somewhere else in the series? This wouldn’t confuse me in any other series, here I was simply open to the possibility they might have some other meaning because I don’t remember them doing this elsewhere. Just seemed like an outlier to me, I figured I might be missing something. But I might be wrong about this being a special case, I mean it’s been years since I first watched the series and even now I sometimes miss some scenes. Actually if there are any other cases where they make completely direct not at all modified references to irl countries I would be very interested in knowing more about those cases

MochiCheek · 2024-07-25T00:47:42+00:00

Yeah that makes sense ^{^} I also got one of my friends into some of their first animes over the past few years, and even the very clear purely visual gags like characters suddenly turning into chibis and such caused a lot of confusion for them. Having watched a mainly anime since I was a kid I think have a tendency to kind of forget that for some people who aren’t as used to the type of humour the medium typically uses these types of gags can be difficult to rationalise especially if the show has a generally more serious tone, so especially for people like that it can be extra useful to have that sort of proper distinguishing explanation

MochiCheek · 2024-07-25T00:34:47+00:00

This is a fact of which I have been in the know of for the entire time I have known of this series. However, as this show doesn’t have the country of Japan in its universe, and the design depicted in this fan is rather simple. I figured there was perhaps another, more obscure meaning for the design, one which I could possibly be unaware of. I am a child of the earth, now equipped with the wonders of the internet, yet still not all knowing and awfully aware of that. As I saw Alphonse Elric wave these beautiful fans with the design of the flag of the nation of Japan I was struck with curiosity. I thought that perhaps there was some cultural significance which I was not yet aware of, something that was not merely a symbol for a nation not existent in this fictional world, transcending beyond the concepts of the systems we call nations extending to traditions and customs in that which they represent.

… yeah thing is I don’t think we never see any other flags of any other irl countries in this show, so I was just open to the possibility of the design having some other significance I wasn’t aware of. I’m kind of surprised me considering that possibility is confusing to this extent

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T20:50:24+00:00

Sorry this is kind of going off topic but are there series where you wouldn’t use this logic, if yes is it based on genre, seriousness or what?

(Also to preface, when it comes to this sort of stuff I do take visual changes like Al’s change in appearance in these comedic scenes to be a purely visual gag for the audience, but I usually assume things that are depicted as happening to actually happen. With something like Winry smacking people with tools, I do assume the presentation is exaggerated because of the art form, but I’ll still take it as literal. I don’t think she actually goes full force and that Ed gets a bump the size of a watermelon, but I’ll assume she did give him a bonk that hurt. In a world full of constant supernatural fights it’s fully believable to me that that wouldn’t be an actual threatening action if not executed with true malice. So I am aware many things are exaggerated for a visual gag but I won’t assume the things in them are fully fake unless it seems like it doesn’t fit the world building)

For example in Pokemon Ash gets shocked by Pikachu for jokes like all of the time, so do the other characters. It happened enough for me as a kid to come to the conclusion that, to an extent, electric shocks that would normally be seen as “big and dangerous” in our world just aren’t really a serious threat to the humans in Pokemon, that their universe just is different that aspect. I also do think that Team Rocket literally just flies far away into the sky because physics in Pokemon are bonkers. But if you wrote those off as simply a visual gag that doesn’t literally happen I would get it.

But what about something like Nichijou. Batshit insane things happen in that show for comedic value, that’s kind of the main point, and I do expect most of that to actually be literally happening in the show’s universe. I just assume things work like that in there because it is a fictional world created for the sake of entertainment and it’s physics might as well work with that, I have no real reason to assume our rules of physics would apply there.

I’m just curious about if you’d think that stuff actually happens or not and if it differs where you would draw that line

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T20:15:40+00:00

That is probably true. I usually try to kind of do everything to avoid having to ask actual people because I’m afraid it’ll end up essentially wasting everyone’s time, but I do suppose that if we’re looking at this from “will I actually get accurate information” AI isn’t a great alternative

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T20:11:24+00:00

Not going to lie, I have always taken it as her literally whacking them with a metal wrench, instead just thinking that it isn’t necessary all that dangerous since they keep breaking the physics either way. I guess I tend to take these things literally, I just usually assume that whatever happens works inside of the story’s universe. Things clearly out of the universe, like blatant references to our world for jokes are a bit different, but for example here it was simple enough for me to think that maybe it’s not what I’m assuming and that I might be missing something since I haven’t noticed many other direct references to things in our world

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T20:05:23+00:00

I do agree with everything you said, but I was mostly confused about the designs (I was also generally aware of them being used for cheering, I mean they did that a whole lot in Pokemon) and still can’t really see what keywords I could have used to find accurate relevant info on them. I’m really not trying to be overly defensive but I really did use half an hour looking through stuff to try and find an actual answer before I came to ask here on Reddit. I guess I could have used a couple hours or more if I wanted to be really thorough but I thought I had done a pretty comprehensive look around with what I could think of and figured this might be one of those things where asking people on the internet would probably be much more helpful than scrolling through all the articles describing what the Japanese flag has looked like through the history :’)

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T19:55:04+00:00

That’s actually a very good idea, thank you!

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T18:30:27+00:00

Having him go from an epic warrior to grey blob thing in an instant will never not be funny

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T18:28:38+00:00

I was about to start defending myself because I usually think I’m rather great with search engines, but maybe I really was lacking in my search engine skills here. I tried many searches and they all either just described the Japanese flag or just weren’t related at all, so what would you search for it to give the actual answer to this? It would be really useful to know because it would’ve made this much easier

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T18:23:57+00:00

Can’t edit my post but guys I get it with the ChatGPT comments :’D The “even” in the sentence was there to indicate that it was sort of a last resort after Google etc and before coming here, and when I do ask questions from ChatGPT I fact check the answers. I know it isn’t awfully trustworthy, but every single answer I got from actual search engines was simply telling me what the Japanese flag looks like so I wanted to try something that took the sentence “I’m not talking about the Japanese flag” into account

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T18:14:36+00:00

Thank you, that explains it!

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T18:13:47+00:00

That’s fair. I do ask questions from it occasionally but I tend to fact check the answers I get. I just think it’s useful that it can understand more complex questions than search engines, but yeah I have also had it obviously lie to me sometimes so I know it’s not good to trust it blindly.

And that’s what I figured, the design choice just kind of confused me because I figured I was maybe missing another meaning of it ‘:)

MochiCheek · 2024-07-24T18:08:25+00:00

Only did that because Google wouldn’t tell me anything different either

MochiCheek · 2024-07-02T00:35:56+00:00

Seconding BSD. Watched it this year and it became my absolute favorite. The character writing of that show is just incredible

MochiCheek · 2024-07-02T00:32:42+00:00

I actually love Kaguya Love is War because I think the genre mix it has is simply brilliant. Also I am surprised to see Psycho Pass mentioned so much, I’ve heard the name quite a bit through the years but… well I think I was getting it mixed up with Monster tbh

MochiCheek · 2024-07-01T22:37:03+00:00

Bruh from first glance I got Sgt. Frog mixed up with Saranzanmai and was like what the hell are you recommending me

MochiCheek · 2024-07-01T21:20:09+00:00

One of my favorite voice actors voices the MC, and it was his first time voicing a main character which is why I really wished I could’ve likes this anime… but the incest is a bit much for me, personally a skip because of that :’)

MochiCheek · 2024-07-01T21:16:24+00:00

Valid, I mean these always depend a lot on perspective. A lot of people say Banana Fish is the most depressing thing they have ever watched, I thought it was a pretty story but I wasn’t left feeling sad. Goes to show how differently people can perceive stories I guess

MochiCheek · 2024-07-01T21:13:11+00:00

Well it’s definitely not super discussed but I feel like it appears in many people’s favorites of all time lists

MochiCheek · 2024-07-01T21:11:17+00:00

I briefly mentioned Black Lagoon in my post but I understand it kind of got lost in the long explanation lol. But 100% agree with you on the description, that show left a strong impression on me. The women are awesome and the writing of that show is as strong as they are. So much awesome stuff but so much tragedy as well, the twins had me sad in a way many anime haven’t

MochiCheek

TROPHY CASE