elilla&, problem immigrant on Nostr: Rockman-san is typical of a prolific subgenre in 2000's Japanese pop media: the ...
Rockman-san is typical of a prolific subgenre in 2000's Japanese pop media: the concept of a mature take on childhood heroes. except they don't do "mature" like the USA—gritty violence and power fantasies—but rather by situating the absurdity of children's media at the mundanity of life in capitalism: jobs, patriarchal dating, urban ennui. this is infinitely more interesting than the USA "mature" fare, but that's a very low bar. Japan is the country where capitalism realism is the realest I've ever seen, to the point where submission to capitalist alienation is considered to be maturity itself, to be the human condition itself (what's called being a "shakaijin", a social person). so there is a huge unsatisfying gap where social critique should stand.
(this is the part where I once again plug Kamen Rider Black Sun for being such an anomaly, I still can't believe they got away with publishing that thing. not even in USA media I see stories where the moral is you should start an underground armed militia. (this is the correct conclusion.))
what's more, the Japanese "mature heroes" subgenre is atrocious with regards to gender, worse than even the USA big-boob forced-romance thing. patriarchy goes, if anything, even more unquestioned than capitalism. this has completely killed the Bishōjo Kamen Powatorin instance of the genre—which, with how big the original Powatorin was for child me, should have been exactly my thing, and I'll never forgive them for it—and it's the same thing here: a golden opportunity to uplift Roll, but she's relegated to the same role as always, that of decoration.
anyway the story. it's 10 years after the Wily Wars, Rockman and Roll are grownups now (turns out their bodies were designed to be modified to age) and have to find a meaningful life in (capitalist) peace. Rock is a dentist, making good use of the copy weapon ability to drill and water and laser and air. Roll is, huge sigh, facepalm, his assistant. A large part of the fun of the series is to see what kind of mundane existence the Robot Masters could have—Cutman is wholly inadequate as a logging robot if you think about it for ten seconds, so he gets a job as a hairdresser, his appearance acting as a marketing gimmick. Gutsman is still doing construction, but down on his luck—modern robots, built without sentience, are better tools for the job, and he's around mostly like any other construction worker, cos he works for cheap and is attached to his mates. Enka (the "Rockman killer model" from Rockman World) is going through a big existential crisis over his absurd reason for existing, and Topman is, *obviously*, a big name Youtube influencer especially popular with the kids ("spinning for 10 hours into the Earth! will he reach Brazil?!?" "spinny guy vs. huge drum!" "spinning with anime waifu figurines attached to his body! more than 100000$ in models!").
(this is the part where I once again plug Kamen Rider Black Sun for being such an anomaly, I still can't believe they got away with publishing that thing. not even in USA media I see stories where the moral is you should start an underground armed militia. (this is the correct conclusion.))
what's more, the Japanese "mature heroes" subgenre is atrocious with regards to gender, worse than even the USA big-boob forced-romance thing. patriarchy goes, if anything, even more unquestioned than capitalism. this has completely killed the Bishōjo Kamen Powatorin instance of the genre—which, with how big the original Powatorin was for child me, should have been exactly my thing, and I'll never forgive them for it—and it's the same thing here: a golden opportunity to uplift Roll, but she's relegated to the same role as always, that of decoration.
anyway the story. it's 10 years after the Wily Wars, Rockman and Roll are grownups now (turns out their bodies were designed to be modified to age) and have to find a meaningful life in (capitalist) peace. Rock is a dentist, making good use of the copy weapon ability to drill and water and laser and air. Roll is, huge sigh, facepalm, his assistant. A large part of the fun of the series is to see what kind of mundane existence the Robot Masters could have—Cutman is wholly inadequate as a logging robot if you think about it for ten seconds, so he gets a job as a hairdresser, his appearance acting as a marketing gimmick. Gutsman is still doing construction, but down on his luck—modern robots, built without sentience, are better tools for the job, and he's around mostly like any other construction worker, cos he works for cheap and is attached to his mates. Enka (the "Rockman killer model" from Rockman World) is going through a big existential crisis over his absurd reason for existing, and Topman is, *obviously*, a big name Youtube influencer especially popular with the kids ("spinning for 10 hours into the Earth! will he reach Brazil?!?" "spinny guy vs. huge drum!" "spinning with anime waifu figurines attached to his body! more than 100000$ in models!").