In My View: The myth of supporting the industry

(Please note: I'm arguing from a Libertarian ethical standpoint. Your mileage may vary.)

So there's been something that's been bothering me for the last couple of months, but I haven't really been able to put a finger on it. It wasn't until I watched the special features on the Haruhi DVDs that it struck me.

Tucked in amid all of the rest of the credits on the ASOS Brigade special feature was a fairly innocuous line:

A special thanks to

All of the fansub lovers who buy the official DVDs and help support more creative works.

No special thanks to

Downloaders/bootleggers who never buy the official DVDs

Now in all fairness this little piece of propaganda has gotten fairly common in these circles in the past couple of years, and has spread like a cold in an elevator ever since the Geneon collapse. Now even past the self-congradulatory smugness of this statement, there's something else that's been bugging me: the idea that buying is ethically good. So let me set my opinion straight on this, the act of exchanging money for entertainment can be either a good or bad thing depending on the quality of the entertainment. But the simple act of "buying" is not necessarily an ethical thing.

That is unless you watched the fansubs. And then buying isn't really an ethical act, but a form of penance, a way to pay back people who you took the entertainment from in the first place.

See what bugs me about this entire argument is that the focus is on the wrong thing. People seem to be confusing the cause with the effect. Anime is a product. DVDs are products. The anime industry, the studios, the directors, the distributors, they aren't products. You aren't and shouldn't be spending your money to "support the industry," you should be spending your money to buy a product. Now, I don't blame the anime industry, I mean they got to sell DVDs, so they're going to use whatever methods they can to convince people to buy. And I don't really blame the fans, I mean everyone wants to believe that they're the hero of their own story.

But, Jiminey Christmas, this idea that I need to buy to support the industry seems like it should come complete with children living in poverty stricken countries, while Sally Struthers tells us how, "You too can help the anime industry for low cost of $ .99 a day" And that's my problem with it. If the product is worth buying, then I'll buy it. If it wasn't worth buying, then I won't buy it. It's that simple. I don't need some sort of guilt trip to make me purchase a DVD. And I definitely don't need some sort of pat on the back to tell me what my ethics should be.

But if the industry is compelled to say something, and evidently they are, a simple thank you would suffice. Because being thanked for correcting an action that was wrong in the first place feels a bit slimy to me.

In My View: Escapism? Don't we all need a break sometimes?

"A lot of people don't like their job Peter. What is important is finding something that does make you happy." – Roughly quoted from Office Space

First before I write this post, I want to apologize to the women for butting into their conversation. But I think they've offered a fascinating range of views on the idea of escapism and how people use anime as both a social tool and a personal tool for dealing with life. In fact, they provided so much material that it's had me thinking about it for two days. (Oh and Paul too.)

That said, I find it strange how people use the word escapism. It's not that I totally disagree that entertainment by its very nature provides an out to the harsh realities that surround us every day. Hell, I'm a 31-year-old phone sales rep. After a day of dealing with people the last thing I want to do is deal with more people. But it seems like we've developed a language that divides "real life" into things that are unpleasant and "escapist" life into things that are fun.

There's got to be a middle ground there. There's got to be room where a hobby is a healthy outlet or at the very least as Gia seems to hint at a way for those people who are less socially adept to interact with other people in a fashion that doesn't involve taking people's orders or working on code (I'm not saying that computer programmers are not socially adept, just that there are computer programmers that are not socially adept.)

This is where I'm stuck. Because escapist implies that we use entertainment to get away from our lives.

And yes, I do think there's a level where we enter into the world the creators have developed and I agree that there's a sense of relief when everything works out (or doesn't work out) in the end. But I don't think that we solely use entertainment (or any hobby for that matter) to get away from our lives, but rather so we can have a life.

Before people start freaking out at me, let me explain my thinking on this. Lelangir was quite right when he pointed out a while back that the Otakusphere has a social structure. Now I'm not sure quite how I'd define it or how it works or what affects it has, but there's definitely a social structure there. For there to be a social structure, that would imply that people are socializing. In fact, again as Gia pointed out, there are various different social structures. You have conventions, fanfic, fanart, podcasts, blogs, forums, clubs, etc. What anime gives people in a lot of ways is a common interest and a common language that we can talk about these things.

And like any community there are going to be some people who don't really fit in, but are they any stranger than the guys who slap on body paint and go to the (American) football game? Are they any less socially proficient than the writers in a critique group who say to the people reviewing them that they just don't get it? Are they any more obsessed than the Chris Crockers of the world? And are there really that many more of them in these circles than in those circles? From my experience, I'd say no.

Now certainly this isn't all encompassing. There are definitely those fans that'd rather spend time with their body pillows than with real people. And there are people for whom anime is a habit rather than a hobby. And I certainly don't want to drift into the territory of whether they're the majority or the minority.

But I will risk saying that they're really not using the hobby to its full extent. So while I'll agree that escapism may play a part in the hobby, it's certainly not the end-all-be-all of it.

My take on Haruhism

"Yeah, right… What's a cubit?" – Noah to God in a Bill Cosby sketch

I've always had a fascination with religion. Now, I'm not a really religious person, I've just been a bit too skeptical for that, but I don't fault anyone who is. In fact, I tend to find it more a failing with me, rather than a failing with other people.

But it's lead to me finding religion (in particular Christianity) really interesting and by extension various images of God (or Gods) in anime interesting. Now, I'll freely admit I'm not a theologian, and I definitely don't necessarily understand all of the finer points of all religions, but that hasn't stopped me before.

So anyways, I started thinking about this topic while I was watching Haruhi, so I thought I'd offer my take on that first. (Obligatory Spoiler warning.)

On the Nature of the SOS Brigade

Haruhi is God, right? I mean that's what the show pretty much lays out there from the start. Now what I finding interesting about Haruhi as God is that she's almost completely unaware that she is God. In fact, her actions might have somewhat disastrous results, but she's never the victim of them. In fact, there's an active conspiracy to keep the truth away from her because who knows what would happen if she ACTUALLY knew that she was God.

What makes this interesting is that almost every person in the SOS Brigade is a direct creation of Haruhi or at the very least is drawn to her. Now it could be said that they're just scientists hoping to examine the phenomenon that is Haruhi. But from a religious standpoint, they seem more like worshippers. At least one point or another, they all actively work to try to appease her. (Thankfully, they stop short of sacrificing virgins.)

Except for Kyon.

Now when I first started thinking about Kyon and his role, I thought maybe he was a prophet. Kind of like Noah in the Bill Cosby sketch, he was a skeptical prophet, but a prophet nonetheless. But, he just doesn't seem to have the right amount of religious fear. In fact, even though he knows the truth about Haruhi, he rarely acts on it; sometimes he actually aggravates the problem.

Let's face it, Kyon might be a lot of things, but he's definitely not a disciple in the church of Haruhi.

Which left me thinking about how does Kyon fit into this mythology? And more fundamentally, why did Haruhi choose him?

On the Nature of Kyon in the church of Haruhi

One of the things that bothered me the more I thought about this was that even though Haruhi is the one with all of the power, Kyon is the one with all of the knowledge. Like I said, there's an active conspiracy to keep the truth away from her. So she's all powerful, but she's completely ignorant.

On the other hand, Kyon knows what's going on, and the only one who can really act on it. It could be said that he's omniscient (in a sense), but is completely powerless. But he's also the only one who actively opposes Haruhi when she goes too far.

So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, even though everyone says Haruhi chose Kyon, Kyon also chose Haruhi. It was his actions that lead to the creation of the SOS Brigade. It was his actions that stopped the world from being swallowed up in closed space. And he's the only one who can rein Haruhi in. In the end, Kyon plays the Superego to Haruhi's inexhaustible Id. In fact, it shouldn't so much be the church of Haruhi as the church of Haruhi and Kyon.

Because in Haruhi, I fear. But in Kyon, I trust.