May 16, 2012

Tentacle Bento Puts the Tentacle In Kickstarter

By omo

So a couple days ago there were a couple articles on Kotaku and Insert Credit and as of 15 hours ago Kickstarter canned Tentacle Bento’s project. They have since then move to their own site, as they were overfunded by a lot. That just means people wanted to buy this game.

For one, I applaud more tabletop games with anime-style themes. It’s unfortunate that rape makes such an interesting…plot twistgame mechanic and it is kind of a joke in the scene. It isn’t unfortunate, however, that it is funny. There are a lot of sad and twisted things in this world that are funny. Humor, especially the dark sort, is some of the best gifts God gave to mankind to cope with those sort of tragedies (eg., actual rape). That silver lining often is ironic.

I think the moral/rights/nonsense part of the issue is kind of straightforward. Kickstarter can choose to allow or not allow any kind of project. Here is what they say. I bolded the potentially relevant items:

[]There are some things we just don’t allow on Kickstarter.

Alcohol (prohibited as a reward)
Automotive products
Baby products
Bath and beauty products
Contests (entry fees, prize money, within your project to encourage support, etc)
Cosmetics
Coupons, discounts, and cash-value gift cards
Drugs, drug-like substances, drug paraphernalia, tobacco, etc
Electronic surveillance equipment
Energy drinks
Exercise and fitness products
Financial incentives (ownership, share of profits, repayment/loans, etc)
Firearms, weapons, and knives
Health and personal care products
Heating and cooling products
Home improvement products
Infomercial or As-Seen-on-TV type products
Items not directly produced by the project or its creator (no offering things from the garage, repackaged existing products, weekends at the resort, etc)
Medical and safety-related products
Multilevel marketing and pyramid programs
Nutritional supplements
Offensive material (hate speech, inappropriate content, etc)
Pet supplies
Projects endorsing or opposing a political candidate
Pornographic material
Raffles, lotteries, and sweepstakes
Real estate
Self-help books, DVDs, CDs, etc
Promoting or glorifying acts of violence

I mean, it’s offensive? I guess any kind of rape anything can be offensive? Who is the judge? And violence! Tons of games with violence on KS go untouched. I suppose those are not “inappropriate content”? I guess it’s okay if they don’t really come up with any objective standard, personally. It’s going to have consequences, but so be it.

In as much I think the Insert Credit article is wrong to compare the allowance of funding for one project versus actually creating a project, it is a valid argument in terms of “does world class organization should be associated with XYZ”? I think that is a stance ultimately bad for free speech, but since Kickstarter is a private sort of thing and isn’t like, say, a publisher like Apple is (BTW they are totally content Nazis), they can probably get away with it. By the way that was the only valid argument in that Insert Credit article that I can really get behind. And that is also unfortunate.

When I first learn and read about this Tentacle Bento KS ban, my initial reaction was more like, “well too bad so sad.” But the second reaction was, “can someone sue Kickstarter for its association with a project that got into legal problems due to content”? Actions have long, fetching consequences. And I think you can. Moreover by censoring a game like Tentacle Bento on the basis of content, just because it’s vaguely borderline to project guideline as far as I can tell–it might be evidence of KS’s involvement in knowingly selecting or condoning specific projects. That is potential litigation fuel–hopefully fuel that will never get used.

The other thing I thought about is just how given the increasing diversity of subgenre and scenes for online nerd scenes, and the deep-drilling niche prjects that Kickstarter enables, there’s a huge risk in terms of misunderstanding the context and nature of, say, tentacle rape. Because that term carry very different meaning between people. Which word speaks louder: tentacle or rape? As the database animals march on, what used to be acceptable interpretation of potentially offensive material may get meta-twisted into parody spinoff games and what not, and I guess those things should not count on Kickstarter for funding from now on. Yes, I’m saying the Insert Credit article just doesn’t quite get it (especially in 2012 terms) but his view is probably common enough to represent a large group of people who will run into more weird situations like this as more niche things find ways to emerge from obscurity.

The more I think about it as an instance of cultural misunderstanding, the more I wonder if the problem isn’t so much how society views rape, but how westerners view Japan. I mean, most Japanese cultural coverage in English media is along the lines of “Oh you silly/weird country/people group” and there is really no real attempt to understand it by the mainstream. I mean, it’s almost hypocritical of Kotaku to talk down on tentacle rape, despite having some of the best tools to be able to get deep into this otaku crud, and rely on it for hits. I probably learn more about Japan from the New York Times than Kotaku, and that is not exactly a shining example.

PS. If you want to read about a cool Kickstarter that breaks a few guidelines, check this out. And do you understand by what I mean by lawsuit? Like, Kickstarter is ripe for some enterprising plaintiff’s attorney to take them to court? Oh yeah.

7 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Popular Culture

May 15, 2012

Anime, Writers: The I Can’t Remember Version

By omo

You can skip to the bold letters if you want the TL;DR version.

If I remember correctly:

So there was this con and I was there. There was a panel at the con, and I was in the panel room, as I sat on the right side of the room, towards the front. That panel featured two or three guests from Japan who worked on some anime that was being promoted at the time, and it was a fairly big show. One of them was the writer for the show. And this all took place some years back, maybe before 2009, I honestly can’t recall.

If you have ever been to one of those things, things being guest of honor panels, you would expect most of the panel to be Q&A, as was this one. People queued up at the mics towards the front, and I can’t remember if it had 2 mics or 1; it may have had 2. The one panel moderator took questions from both sides like a round-robin load-balancer, in that case.

I wish I had a name for this writer-guest, it would have made writing it up so much easier. The grey matter isn’t cooperating, and I can narrow it down some, but the internet lists don’t have the right name. I can’t remember much else, besides that there was some tricky detail to that show in the writing and someone did ask how that person came up with the idea.

As for a different name, what I am trying to say has to do with how some people criticize about Mari Okada. I’m fine with free-market exchange of thoughts and critical thinking about Okada and Lupin the Third. I just want to shed some light in terms of how it could possibly went down so we attribute praise and blame accordingly, or at least, in a less-wrong fashion when we could. Let’s first recognize unless we are privy to how it exactly went down every time, we can’t really say, and we are not really in position to know for sure unless we have the facts. So the next best thing fan could do is either:

  1. shut up, or
  2. find out how the typical industry practices are and extrapolate and guess.

I like #1 a lot but I guess we have no choice here, right?

At that fuzzily-remembered panel, the writer-panelist explained his role in the overall project. He was the “head” writer. He had to work with the core creative folks–director, guys who storyboard, whatever, I can’t remember if it was a novel adaptation or what–and come up with the overall plan. And then he worked with some writers who banged out the detail scripts for each episode, by assigning portions of the story to them. He also wrote some of the scripts himself. I think for that particular project he wrote almost the entire thing himself, but he mentioned that he has written for other shows where he was one of the hired hands who just did specific episodes as according to specification. I also believe he had some supervisory tasks after the episode scripts were done, just to go over and make changes for continuity and other reasons.

“Series composition” is often the title credited for this role. There are also other lead writing type titles (series concept, scenario, etc) but you get the idea.

I have another name: Tatsuo Sato. This guy is probably best known for being the director (and the guy responsible) of the Nadesico TV show and movie. I recall hearing about Nadesico’s writers from Sato himself (at a con, of course), who basically said they had a lot of talented writers who just wrote great things that he took wholesale and left them as is. I think the episode previews betrayed it as much. In this capacity I think Sato acts (like most of the time for directors) as the guy who coordinates the scripts. He applied them as he saw fit. Compared to his ongoing Mouretsu Pirates, the approach is somewhat more conservative as you see Sato penning more episodes himself.

Basically my point here is that what the writer’s input in any given anime project varies greatly, and going by one name or one title isn’t going to be very helpful. When Hideyuki Kurata showed up in vintage form in Kannagi episode 7, you know he’s the guy writing it. But could you tell he was the “series composition” credit for Kaminomi or Dragon Crisis? Actually his ardent fans probably can, but not most of us. You can kind of tell it in OreImo but that’s a stretch (I still believe Kurata is the X-factor that turned a trash anime to a chart-topper). Most of the time he is just playing it safe, adopting the source material, but sometimes Kurata shines, because he is given the latitude to do so. Besame mucho, for example.

If we want to look at Okada, and why you like or dislike her, it seems a lot more sensible to deeply nitpick the original works she wrote over the adaptations, like (1) Fractale (which I imagine she just took cues from Hiroki Azuma and Yutaka Yamamoto) or (2) Hanasaku Iroha (which seems almost like her brainchild) or even (3) AnoHana (which seems more Tatsuyuki Nagai than anything), except that is still a questionable gauge as I parenthetically expressed. When it comes to Okada’s Fujiko, I’m thinking case #3 applies–it’s way more Sayo Yamamoto than anyone else; perhaps even more than Monkey Punch. In contrast, I think Okada hammed it up in her adaptation of Hourou Musuko, who is credited to write and lead the script effort, if you want a real point of criticism. I enjoyed the show, but I imagine that tickled the manga fans.

Kind of a deja vu here.

With more BRS, AKB0048 and Aquarion EVOL  under our collective belts, care we re-evaluate our initial assumptions? I thought BRS was pretty much spot-on in terms of the writing being a work of interpreting the lyrics by Okada, except people kept confusing it with the original OAV and ignore the obvious connection to BRS’s song lyrics. And it was something if you don’t “get” you won’t enjoy (in that sense very much like Book of Bantorra and Simoun, both shows Okada worked on). I don’t really know what to think about AKB0048, as not enough content is yet available to decide on the writing. Aquarion EVOL is awfully like Hanasaku Iroha’s pretentious tension, with her signature ups and downs, if you take a look at it from a structural perspective (and she’s “series composition” on both, naturally). In fact I’d guess that the two feel as different as they are on the screenplay level because Okada wrote all of Hanasaku Iroha, and only a third of EVOL.

[Times like this I'm actually very happy that the average anime script give voice actors sufficient room to play their roles in drastically different manners, even if in terms of the chemistry, the same writer tend to deploy the same tricks across different works. Or else Andy W. Hole would turn into a balut.]

If I want to nitpick on Okada’s writing, I would totally attack the way she creates dramatic tension in the script. Just saying. And at any lower level/higher resolution of detail in terms of nitpicking I will have to go bust out episodic credit lists, and I don’t really have any motivation to do so (ie., I think Simoun episodes 15-16 are freaking awesome). If you want to venture out on your own, that’ll be an educational experience I’m sure. For example you can look at how Book of Bantorra is divided up, and report back what the end result of collating the first four episodes did.

Maybe people should start criticizing someone easier to identify by his flourishes, like Yousuke Kuroda. You know, just for practice.

PS. I recall some writeup at ANN that explained screen writing for anime in detail and in a more exacting manner rather than my usual meandering style. Anyone got a link to it? I don’t remember/cannot find it anymore.

6 comments | posted in Aquarion, Modern Visual Culture, Nadesico, Simoun

May 12, 2012

Sengoku Warrior Michael Moore?

By omo

I was half falling asleep trying to catch up on Sengoku Collection (not the show’s fault, well, mostly) when I stumbled on episode 5 as the latest spacetime-meandering warring state legends find themselves at the end of a camera. But as cute as Bokuden Tsukahara is, it was more amusing to see this large Caucasian dude trying to film a documentary, named Mike Morse. Do they spring their boom ops and camera dudes on unsuspecting Japanese folks in real life when they do these things like how it is in this anime? I can imagine David Gelb popping out a half dozen technicians in on this after walking into that little sushi bar.
But more like, I think this is almost like when that Studio 4C kickstarter promises that for their top-tier backers, they’ll make you into anime characters. And it may be a villain; who wouldn’t want to be a villain in a Studio 4C music video?

But really, taking a step back, is it more ridiculous to see a parody of a famous American filmmaker in an anime about little moe girls as the embodiment of historic generals from Japan’s warring states period; or, as anime girls that embodies said historic generals? I’m not sure. I thought the episode between Kanetsugu and Uesugi was already a bit over the top, but seeing idol Ieyasu ad trucks parading up and down the street put things in perspective. [To put THAT to perspective, I think Las Vegas is the only town in America where you'll see moe girls on truck ads up and down the street.]

There’s an unstated subtleness to Sengoku Collection that even its mundane plot, which normally would cause clinical sleepiness, makes you want to take notice what it isn’t telling you. The ensemble cast, too. I mean, it is suppose to transpose historic situations with 2012 sensibilities, and I think most of these episodes do that. You get to think about shady documentaries that spins the dangers of ownership of sharp objects in one way, leaving me to think “oh man all my NRA-card-carrying friends would get a laugh out of this.” Except I don’t think any of them would enjoy Sengoku Collection unless they needed sleeping aid.

I suppose the whole point about cameras being weapons can be the message that gets lost in this, but to me that’s the compromise for all the liberal bleeding heart trying to enjoy this week’s historic hysterics.

There are some other random things:

One: If Sengoku Collection is an anime based on the same-named Mobage mobile game for phones, does this qualify it along the lines of:

  1. anime adaptations made from actual games (eg., Disgaea, Halo),
  2. anime adaptations made from galge (eg., Futakoi, Futakoi Alternative), or
  3. anime adaptations made from dumb things (eg., Queen’s Blade, Umi Monogatari)?

I mean an anime based on Angry Birds or Tiny Tower would be the kind of thing that makes you think the source material is dumb, so I’m leaning towards category 3.

Two: This is not even that funny, albeit in a funny way. Worse I don’t even know how many people who reads his site get this.

Three: Can we agree that this is the most underrated anime this season? At least, at 6 episodes in. The show kind of reminds me of Seraphim Call, which is Mochizuki’s strange TV series based on an equally trite 2.5D premise that turned out to be one of my favorite moe-era work (way back in 1999!). I think it’s not an entire coincidence that Keiji Goto is at the helm on this one. That brand of simple and subtle in Sencolle is very much his.

PS. DAT MasaMUNE must be something carried over from Devil Kings or some such.

3 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture, Sengoku Collection

May 10, 2012

Wave of Unbelievably Random Novels Invade Japanese Shores

By omo

[Inspired by this intrepid list of insipid plot-generator-type titles. So, here goes nothing.]

Wave of unbelievably random novels invade Japanese shores

Tenth grader Rinko Kobayakawa is just your average, middle-class Japanese high schooler who likes rock music, fashion and walks to school every day. She, like millions of others like her in junior high school and high school in Japan, spent on average dozens of hours a month reading on their commute or spare time between classes.

“I don’t really remember when it started, but I’ve been reading these light novels ever since fourth grade. All of the sudden these new sorts of books are everywhere and I can’t even find a normal book, like that book about vampires that’s so popular a couple years ago.”

Rinko is more avid of a reader than most, and in a month she can read up to 10 of these light novels–pulp novels in a small form factor, made for teens to read on their commute, often featuring mystery, fantasy and romance as subject matters. Although teens of Japan flock to video games and shows on TV as much as their counterparts in other developed nations, Japan has always been a country that treasured its print media, boasting the largest newspaper in circulation and a publishing industry at about 1.8 trillion yen, or over 21 billion US dollars. However, as with other print markets in developed nations, it is slowly giving way to similar things–games, and mostly, the internet.

“This is an emerging market,” said a mid-level executive at a premiere publisher, name withheld to protect his employer’s image at his request. “Over the past three years we have seen nearly three-fold growth in our light novel imprints, and while the growth is slowing it remains highly profitable. Kids will eat this up, and it gives a wide variety of authors a lot of opportunity to publish something interesting.” Compared to the short period when cell-phone published works like keitai-shousetsu was popular, light novel was still, after all, printed on paper. It gave this particular print publisher some comfort in an increasingly uncertain world in print publishing.

Cellphone novels are not the last attempt for Japanese publishers to make way into the digital realm. However unlike other bigger pushes in recent years, or even Amazon’s recent deal to bring the Kindle to Japan, the cellphone novels attained popularity from its young writers and their convention-breaking styles. Usually using a pseudonym, these writers were able to reach the teens and connected to today’s youth trends and styles. Compared to more traditional print published works, which are stiffer and takes a less familiar tone to the reader, these cellphone novels are written with a casual, if entirely informally or with an experimental voice, as they were given more leeway with what they could write. It narrowed the gap between the reader and the writer, and for many teens that was the connection they were looking for in their entertainment.

Light novels, naturally, quickly took to this style and have also seen its popularity rise as a result. ”There are all kinds of light novels out there, but some of them I really don’t understand how or why they could ever be published. I mean, I understand a few of these little sister novels are pretty popular, I read one series and it is pretty funny. But these other ones, I don’t know.” Tabata, another 10th grader, is much more skeptical. “Why are these stories are being published? I mean it feels like anybody can write a light novel these days, and some publisher will print it, and worse, someone will always buy it.” Tabata’s concerns are not unfounded; during the years of explosive growth, new titles are in high demand, and the forgiving readership made it possible for a wide variety of mediocre performers to stay on the market.

As with most pulp fiction, the racy and controversial often sell best. How would parents react to this trend of light novels? Governor Shintaro Ishihara of Tokyo Prefecture, a published author himself, proposed a bill in 2010 that pushed the formation of a government panel that deems certain print work to be adult only. The controversial ordinance, prefaced to protect the youth from exactly the seedy and questionable print content in manga and pulp magazines, solicited mixed responses from the public. “I’m not for censorship, but sometimes I wonder if the comic and novels my son buys in the convenient store are really okay for a minor.” Yoshino Kousaka, the mother of a teenage boy and girl, does what she can to support their hobbies and development. “I know my daughter sometimes like to buy some of these very girly, urban fantasy and romance books, but somehow I’m just more worried about my son getting into it. I mean he is at that age, you know? Maybe it would be best to limit those things. Sometimes I read the titles of these books and I really wonder what is going on.”

Mrs. Kousaka’s concerns are not uncommon. Titles such as I Love My Older Brother But as Long as We Have Our Love It’s OK Right?, A Sister’s Virgin Lips Are Only for Her Brother!, It’s Not Like I Love My Brother at All!!, Am I Not Allowed to Play Footsies with My Sister?, or Why My Tsuntsun Koakuma Sister Became Dere Before Becoming My Waifu are just a small sample of a much larger pool of today’s light novel offering that may draw a discerning parent’s eyes. It’s with caution that Japanese children, teens and parents approach this new trend of media proliferation in the new decade.

[This post is also called "My Big Brother/Boyfriend Is Also an Idol Producer." I guess that could be the subtitle.]

[And if you can't tell this is a fictional work, well, you have bigger things to worry about.]

4 comments | posted in Modern Visual Culture, OreImo

May 9, 2012

That Media Blaster Thing

By omo

So basically last week before I took off on vacation the word was that Media Blaster got tagged by the NY State for non-payment of taxes. Knowing MB I didn’t think it was a big deal, since they were probably just putting off taxes as much as they could and probably missed something. But in the forum thread of that ANN post the ignorance came about about how so-and-so is no longer a corporation or whatever. The juice also got juicy when Media Blaster got back to them and stuff that happened that I don’t really care for. There was even some mention of something about some paper at some trade show? I don’t know, but it sounded juicy.

So now I am finally reading it. You can read this, but I think ANN just got it wrong by giving it the wrong spin and obviously Sirabella did not take to it in a way that is all that diplomatic.

If they want to cover legal crap like this, they need a tax lawyer or a tax accountant at least. I mean, seriously, corporate tax law is not exactly the most transparent thing. You’ll need experience to interpret this stuff because it’s more about process and what happens than what some paper may actually say. This is not like getting a traffic ticket. And that goes for the rest of us–if you see coverage of commercial legal preceding that does not have some lawyer being quoted on this stuff you will need to take it with a grain of salt. Furthermore, if you see someone quoting from the statute (as opposed to just referring to it) in a news article that is not actually about the statute, it is usually a red flag that whoever is writing about it is not a subject matter expert. I mean, com’on now, the average state tax code is already an alien language to most lawyers, how can you expect the average anime geek to understand it?

Well, I don’t want to be too harsh. This sort of thing happens all the time now, especially in tech reporting given the various patent and copyright wars being waged by these tech firms. But it really is not an easy thing to understand. I can say with good confidence that at least when it comes to copyright, even lawyers don’t understand it, it’s that complicated. So to me there’s a great need, an unfulfilled need in reporting in this area, especially when you have these horde of poorly paid, inexperienced bloggers writing up the news online, may it be Gawker or ANN or any other site.

2 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Popular Culture