Oh to be an otaku in America

Recently I was listening to Anime Roundtable (which has become my second favorite anime-related podcast) and they were talking about an interview with Kio Shimoku (the creator of Genshiken) in Publisher's Weekly, and it got me thinking about Otaku culture (especially in North America).

Honestly one of the most interesting statements was from the interviewer on the nature of the world otaku - "Unlike in the U.S., where otaku is treated with more affection and used the way geek is, in Japan, to be called an otaku by a non-otaku is like being called a pervert or freak."

I'm not so sure about it. I mean I'm sure that the word otaku has become this catch-all subculture specific word that essentially means anime (or manga) fan. Probably in the most extreme situations it delves into Nipponphilia, but it doesn't go much further than that.

What it did remind me of was something a comic store clerk once said to another customer. He was comparing the various levels of hygiene of the groups of geeks who went through there and he came up with this list (from best to worst):

Anime fans
Heroclix/Mechwarrior players
Comic book collectors
D&D players
Anime fans

Yes, that was the list. What I found interesting was the idea that the anime fans were the best and the worst. And for better or worse I think it's still there today.

My observations about the North American Otaku Culture

Sure smarter people than I have made better arguments than I will about this same phenomena. But to be honest, I'm really not sure what the picture of the normal "otaku" is in America. I mean sure we do have a few torch carriers who still say that anime is better than any Western entertainment. But they're definitely in the decline. In general, the word is starting to become mashed up with general nerd culture.

To be fair, I don't think it's a bad thing. Because, as much as it might not be true for everyone, anime fans are the ambassadors of nerd culture. The work itself attracts a subset of the counterculture that dresses nicely, can have discussions with the opposite sex and actually does bathe regularly. (Well for the most part.)

But I wonder if the subculture isn't losing a bit of it's identity. As much as nerd culture gets co-opted by the hipsters, I miss it's insular nature. I miss the idea that anime fandom was about anime and not about video games or politics or any of the hundreds of other geeky hobbies that all have their own little world.

And to top it all off, I wonder where it's going now. Is all of nerd culture going to become one semi-hipster enclave? Will it become as vapid an meaningless as all that. Or will it just segregrate, much like that list at the beggining seems to hint at. Will the hardcore otaku-types just go off to their corners, while this new guard comes in.

In My View: What's the Moe?

In all of fandom there are arguments that seem to stretch across the span of time. Subs vs. Dubs. Eva vs. RahXephon. Fansubs. And now it's moe.

To be honest, I don't get it. I mean I don't get any of it. On a basic level, I understand what moe is, I understand that there's supposed to be these cute, lovable girls that I, the viewer, just want to protect. They're anime's equivalent of the teddy bear or the picture of the puppy dog.

Now I've watched the first four episodes of Air and all I have to say is, um... what's the problem? All of the people who froth in the mouth about how bad moe is seem to go on about how these characters are spineless drones that pander to an audience that wants an ideal little sister, who'll do all those things that stereotypically have been the woman's province.

I have already said my piece about stereotypes in fiction, but I'll say it again. The actual stereotype doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if Harriet spent all day smiling over a sink full of dishes. It doesn't matter that a character enjoys filling a role that has been classically designated by one's gender. Anymore than it matters that Rambo likes going out and kicking ass and taking names.

What matters is what the show/movie/book says about the stereotype. The reason why Harriet or June Cleaver might be offensive is that they are lauded as the ideal. They don't have bad days. They don't have hopes and dreams or fights. The plot and world says that they're happy filling that role and that everyone who fufils that role is happy. Just because a character is moe, doesn't mean they're the ideal.

And considering how borderline unhappy these people seem to be I don't think it's sending a positive or negative message either way.

But again, that's just me.

I mean it's not like all of the female characters live off of their husbands, smiling that they get the extreme joy of being dependent on their man. It's not like they need the guy to solve all their problems. In fact the main character in Air is at best a vagrant, at worst he's a loser.

The female lead might be cute and yes, a bit ditzy, but it isn't like she can't make up her own mind without going to the male lead. So how is this a horrible stereotype that classifies women.

And to top it all off, and I hate to say it, but aren't these all harem shows to begin with. Even though someone's sure to launch themselves at me for this one, but when were harem shows great to begin with? I don't see people holding up Ai Yori Aoshi or Love Hina as the height of anime. So instead of random girl going crazy once an episode, now we have random girl being cute once an episode? What's the big deal?

And will I ever know?

In My View: Hemingway and Joyce, some thoughts on pretentiousness

So iknight's got me thinking about language lately. Thanks. Just thanks, because all I needed was my mind churning around in semantic circles like some car where the wheels on the right side have gone out.

Okay, so it's not his fault. But I've been thinking about the word pretentious. Doesn't that word just sound like what it is? Pre-tent-ious. And while I don't think the anime reviewing circles have totally mashed that word into a bloody pulp, I do think it's really really overused.

The problem I have with it, is that it's a gut reaction word. On top of that, it's a word that holds all of it's meaning in the connotation and a little bit in the denotation.

The denotation of the word is:

" characterized by pretension: as a: making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) b: expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature "

At least according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. (Yeah, it isn't the OED, but it's good enough for me.)

So really, it isn't about the show at all. The word is reflective of claims that are made about the importance of the show. What I think it's come to mean is a story that seems to think too highly of itself without actually delivering. The problem is that I don't think it's really reflective of what people are actually reacting to.

How Joyce and Hemingway relate to anime

Okay, so a long time ago I was forced to read "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" (now that's a pretentious title if I've ever seen one). During the lead up to reading it, I learned Joyce mainly wrote for a small group of his friends. Now all of them really liked what he had to say. In all honesty, I think that's what people are reacting to when they say a show is pretentious.

Essentially, there is this show (take your pick, but I'll take Lain), that is directed at a particular audience (people who like theme heavy science fiction with a broken narrative). Now the target audience is going to love it. While the rest of everyone else is going to sit around scratching their heads going, "Huh?"

In Literature, the supporters would call it art. They'd sit around discussing the various implications and talk like this is truly the most important piece of writing that has come along for the last decade or longer. The same thing happens in anime to a certain extent, but mostly because anime in general doesn't attract the same culture.

The type of culture that is attracted is a Hemingway culture. Now I use Hemingway in specific because he stated that he wrote for a mass audience. He wanted people to understand what he was writing. He didn't doll it up. He didn't obfuscate what he was trying to say by fooling around with form or language. He just said it. Now that doesn't mean he couldn't be subtle. But he focused on the story first and the rest of the stuff second.

In general, that's the type of culture that anime attracts. We usually want more Hemingway and less Joyce type of stuff, because it's geared at a mass audience. (That's why something like Lain will never have the commercial success of something like Cowboy Beebop.)

So which one is better?

Okay, so I've kind of hinted at my feelings on the subject. But I think there's two general trains of thought that go through anime. There are the storytellers and the artistes. Now the storytellers focus on story first and theme second. In fact, I think the perfect example of that is Paranoia Agent, which while it had a pretty big theme that was overtly important to the plot, it didn't forget that the characters needed to go through arcs, that there needed to be a build in tension, that people were watching this show for the show and not for whatever the creators are trying to say.

Whereas artistes are dedicated to art-form. They don't care about the audience that "doesn't get it". They only care about the people who will admire their brilliance. And on general audiences, that doesn't work. For the most part, their message gets lost somewhere in the broken narratives, the symbolic discourses and the bizarre twists. The artistes are doomed to be misunderstood and derided. And they should be, because they don't give enough of a damn about their audiences to really make a story.

Related Link

Just to prove how unoriginal I am, Michael over at AnimeOtaku wrote about a similiar thing a while back concerning ErgoProxy

In My View: Brought to you by the land of suck, the new wave in releasing anime

So recently I came across two seperate yet equally disturbing pieces of news. First, Sony is finally going to release Blood + on DVD in March. It's planning on doing this in a single disk retailing at $24.96 (containing five episodes) and a box set retailing at $119.95. On a side note, I'd just like to say how really excited I am about finally getting this on DVD.

But the other piece of disturbing news is that Viz will be releasing Busou Renkin in a box set containing the first 13 episodes, retailing at $49.99. Oh yeah, and they're probably going to do it with Hikaru no Go and MAR. Now, I'll admit I don't really have much intention of picking up either of these series, but I'm starting to see a trend.

The Box set from the land of suck.

Now, I know that some very smart people have been advocating this move for a while. But I don't think those very smart people have really thought this through. Perhaps even more than that, I think those very smart people really need to figure out the economics of the average anime fan.

Okay, so I might not be the average anime fan. But at least I'm one anime fan. So let's take the Busou Renkin release as an example. I have $40 every two weeks to spend on anime. Now if that $40 isn't spent on anime, it will get spent on something else. But if I spend full retail picking up BR, then I'll probably end up spending an extra $5 to $13 after tax and shipping. And that's assuming I can get it on the cheap.

Also box sets devalue slower. So it's less likely that I'll be able to find a break on the price that will put it into the affordable range. If you want proof of that, the non-bootleg version of the Trigun box set is still more than $100 on Amazon Market place. This is for a series that came out almost a decade ago. Whereas the first disk of Eureka 7 is going for just under $10 for an actual R1 release. Granted, I could save the money, but if this trend continues what would I spend it on? Because it wouldn't be anime.

And the Blood + release is even worse. The economics for that release work out that even if somehow I managed to have $120 to spend on the box set, how much money am I really saving? Six dollars. So where I can afford the single disk release, the box set is set so far out of reach it's ridiculous.

I realize that anime distributors are trying to innovate and respond to the changing market climate, but this isn't the way to do it. If they're really concerned about average folk buying their DVDs, then they need to price them in a range where average folk can buy them.

So to the very smart folks who are advocating this, phooey on you.

The hits don't stop coming: ADV's latest announcement

So I just came across this piece of news on ANN. It seems that ADV is going to cancel the 24/7 service for The Anime Network.

Now really, I'm of two minds on this one. At first, I'm thought, "Well shoot, there goes another pretty fan friendly service right down the tubes." And really the article does paint pretty dramatic tones as far as the troubles for broadcasting anime. It seems that the field is shrinking for broadcasting anime.

And how can we bring new fans into the fold without these type of services. I mean we owe at least a portion of the current fanbase to Adult Swim and Toonami. So losing a 24/7 broadcaster of anime is a pretty significant hit.

Except that it really isn't. Let's face it, they've just opened up a better 24/7 portal on their Website. (Except that I've only gotten it to work twice on my computer, I'm not sure if that's my computer or the site). And they're working on catering to their existing customer base rather than a maybe customer base, that might actually get their programming.

In fact, the entire idea of a 24/7 anime channel seems a bit silly when I really think about it. Granted, I'm sure there are people who love to sit around and watch whatever ADV decides to put on there, but in reality, those aren't the new customers. And it wasn't widely availible. I couldn't even get it, even though I do get their VOD service. (Which I use pretty frequently.)

So while, I do have the urge to run around screaming, "Oh no, what's going to happen next?". I'm not entirely concerned.

Now if I could only get their online site to work.

In My View: On Classic and Popular Anime

Cameron's first rule of Classic Anime: A series will be deemed a classic based on the popularity of the show among the elite when it was released.

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So I've seen a lot of talk around the blogs about what type of anime is cool or good or defines a person as an otaku rather than just a casual viewer. I really wanted to write a post about it, but I couldn't really focus on it. Honestly, it's reminded me a lot of the whole new vs. old debate. And if there's one thing I've learned about anime "classics" much like other classics, generally it's based on what a select group of people think about a series at the time it was released.

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Take a Nadia: The Secret of the Blue Water for instance, the elite seem to think that it's a classic. Hell even Bamboo Dong over on ANN supported the show and generally I agree with her. But, it's a horrible, horrible show. It's long. It's tedious. The characters are okay, but they're pretty predictable. The plot is tired after about ten episodes and decides to take a long nap. The world is pretty cliche (Come on, it's Atlantis?).

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In fact, the only thing the show is good for is giving it the MST3K treatment. And even at that you need to have a bunch of friends to do it with. And I'm not even going mention the quality of the animation. They won't give it up though, mostly because of another trend:

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Cameron's Second Law of Classic Anime (The Persistence Effect): A series or movie will persist to be a "classic" as long as the majority of the elite consider it a classic.

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To be fair, I do like reading a lot of the columns and listening to the podcasts of the elites. Which means that they have the ability to continue to spread their gospel of what is a classic and what isn't a classic. The problem is that once a series enters the Canon it can't get shaken out.

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Mostly, I think it's a factor of an emotional reaction. These were the series that the top dogs watched way back when and that got them into anime in the first place. So they're associated with a happier time, back when they were introduced to anime. So I have some sympathy towards their situation. But, not much.

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Although it's interesting to note that there's another effect that goes on with "classics".

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Cameron's Third Law of Anime Classics (The Degradation Effect): Each new generation of fans will reassess or dismiss classics.

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With as much new stuff that is coming out year after year, those classics are starting to slowly lose their hold. Mostly because I think a new generation of elite is starting to find their way onto the Internet. Granted, I don't think enough time has really passed to supplant the current set, but I have started to see it happen.

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Sure there are classics that deserve to be classics, but there are so many more that don't. In fact, I would even dare to say that a solid majority of the classics out there aren't really all that hot.

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Although this has lead to another phenomenon that I've started to hear about, which is a culture clash between older fans and newer fans. Not so much from the newer fans side of things, but more from the older fans who don't understand why people would like X show more than they like the classics. In a lot of ways, they can't see past their own emotional opinion to really get at whether or not their favorites really are good shows. Or were they just good at the time.

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Agree or disagree? Leave a comment or e-mail iniksbane@gmail.com.

In My View: Is ANN worth paying for?

So recently I came across the suscription link for Anime News Network. Evidently, they've started to sell advertising-light access to their Web site. At least according to this, you can turn off some banner ads and turn of those really dumb Kotera links all for the low price of US$3 a month or US$14 for six months or US$20 for a year.

Which of course raises the question, is ANN worth paying for? Like I've said before, I have a love/hate relationship with ANN. Not because they're really horrible, but because they're one of the best out there and they're still mediocre.

And who am I to call them mediocre? I'm a reporter, or at least I wrote more than 300 articles for my college newspaper. I had the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle as a teacher. One of my mentors worked for the Asian Wall Street Journal. I've won at least one SPJ award. I've covered budget hearings, tuition raises, local businesses and am honestly a damn good reporter. Whether I'm a good writer may be another story, but I can spot a hole in a story fifteen feet away.

Case in point - The Eric Sherman interview. It's one of the best pieces of journalism that I've seen come out of ANN. And it still has at least three problems with it. First is a general style issue. The Q&A format works great for fluff pieces about people that we really don't care about, or rather we don't need any real background for, like VAs, Directors or any other celebrity. But for an heavy piece of journalism it's actually inviting the person to say whatever, without any moderation or fact checking. Like say, Sherman's now infamous quote about Haruhi (if one-third of the people who downloaded the fansub had bought the DVD, it would have done much better.)

So how many units did Haruhi sell? Um... yeah, even with access to Vidscan we didn't get those numbers. Nor did we get a comparison with a great seller like Fullmetal Alchemist. Instead, we get Sherman's baseless word that it didn't do well. Do I believe Sherman? Sure. Do I believe that Zac Bertschy knows enough about the industry to not let that slide? Sure. Should I have to trust that these two people wouldn't lead me down the merry path? Good lord, no.

Hole number two would have been so simple to fix it would take maybe a half hour of research for ANYONE to do. The same point that I lauded Bertschy on, is the point he fails to provide facts yet again. The point about Anime TVs reviews being focused on Bang Zoom! dubs. He NEVER tells us which shows they were. He simply leaves it to the reader to do the research to make sure he's right.

I hate to say it, but these are rookie mistakes. They're mistakes I saw freshman J-students make. They aren't mistakes I expect out of a professional news organization.

But that said, I cut ANN some slack. Why? Because they're the equivalent of a trade magazine, the AARP magazine of anime, if you will. I want them to do better, but I don't expect them to.

So that said, is having an ad-light version of ANN worth it? Well there's the access to the "Community" forums, which I imagine is pretty much like the regular forums, only with less people. That might be good. But is it worth $3 a month. I don't really think so.

About the only think I can see being worth the money is getting rid of the Kotera links. They aren't really annoying, but they're just so random, like it highlighted "cruise to the Bahamas" in the story about the NYAF cruise con. Why would I care about a Bahamas cruise when I'm reading ANN? It's just bizarre.

But that said, I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is. Starting this Friday, I will sign up for either a month or six month membership and tell you all about it. Maybe I'll be surprised and think that it's worth it. But I doubt I will.

In My View: On anime girlfriends

So I've got a confession to make. I'm evidently not otaku enough. Well at least in comparision to some of the stuff I've been reading and listening to. I try. I don't go out much. In my free time, I either write, blog or watch anime and movies - all of which are solitary activities. The majority of my free money goes to buying DVDs.



But according to here or here and it's even hinted at here, I'm missing the boat somewhere. And what that boat might that be? The wanting an anime character girlfriend boat. I don't get it. Really, I don't. Maybe it's the fact that anime girls, well, aren't that attractive. Ocassionally there's one or two where the artwork is enough to catch my eye, but in comparison to the earlier issues of Witchblade or Danger Girl, they don't even rate. In most cases, I can't suspend my disbelief far enough to make them sexual objects. Occasionally a show manages to come close (like the shower scene with Aya at the beginning of Tenjo Tenje), but for the most part even the most blatant fanservice doesn't really do anything for me.

But for some people, well they just take it too far. In the rant on Anime Diet (the first link I posted), the guy just went on and on with misconception after misconception (I'm still hoping he was joking). And that's what I've been hearing out of the hardcore otaku culture, is a lot of assuming that women are shallow golddiggers. It's like they've taken all of those stereotypes from off the television and superimposed those on real women.

All I have to say is they aren't real. Seriously, you can't reach through the television screen and touch them. I don't get it at all.

But then again, I don't understand skydiving either. So I'm willing to give their fetish a little bit of leeway. If that's what get's their rocks off, I'll look the other way.

Except that it's getting worse. A quick trip around the blogs and I'm finding that not only is there a subculture of anime fans like that, but a really loud subculture of anime fans. With fetishes so unrealistic that it makes me shake my head. It's starting to make me wonder. Am I the only anime fan out there that doesn't have a fetish for anime girls? Are there other people who feel that anime is great entertainment but taking it beyond that is a little, well, creepy?

Occasionally, I'll see or hear older fans that say the same things I do, but I wonder if we aren't the minority. Or am I just not otaku enough to understand.

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Agree or disagree? Leave a comment or e-mail iniksbane@gmail.com.

Head Hurting Time - More on Fansubs and the Industry

Right on the heels of reading about the Comcast/Odex snafu, I came across this interview with Arthur Smith, the president of G.D.H Int'l on activeanime.com. Part of me wants to agree with him. I mean, he's right. People who download fansubs and don't buy the DVDs hurt the market. As HardCheese pointed out in a recent post, it's simple econimics.

But something bothers me... What could it possibly ever be? Oh yeah, we don't actually have any real numbers. Well except for this part:

"...why the overall DVD market in US is down 15% and anime DVD market, even though interest in anime is GROWING much faster than other types of programming, is down 30%!! How can that be, if not through the impact of file sharing!?!"

Besides the extreme overuse of exclamation points (I mean how do you yell more than yelling), I'm curious about these percentages. So the DVD market overall is down 15 percent? What does that mean really? If 100 DVDs were sold last year then this year 85 DVDs are sold? Or does it mean that if the company made $100 last year on DVD sales, they made $85 this year on those same sales?

I tell you those percentages are tricky. And can you really compare a relatively small niche market to a larger mass audience market at all? It seems to me that these are alarmist tactics at best. At worst, they're downright fabrications.

On top of that, I'm having a really hard time feeling bad for Mr. Smith. It's really easy to blame the fansubs. He even says "What other reason could there be?" And then turns around an points out one of the top reasons - There's a two year gap between when the show is released in Japan and when it's released in the United States.

Let me give you another one, Mr. Smith. I just spent $30 filling up a 12 gallon tank of gas. My electricity, cable and rent are all going up, but my paycheck isn't. Oh, here's another one - the quality of your shows have gone so far downhill in the last couple of years that your company has officially been branded a laughingstock.

Oh wait. But see you can't attack those. So it has to be those naughty fansubbers that are doing it to you. For goodness sake, lay off the semantics. Yes, people who do not buy the anime DVDs (or at least rent them) are hurting the industry. But to simply throw some meaningless numbers up there and expect the rest of us to run around like Chicken Little screaming, "The sky is falling."

Well, that's just dirty.