Category Archives: English Language Modern Visual Fandom

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

May 7, 2012

Racism By Polity, Racist Jazz

By omo

Japanese people have a reputation when it comes to music. This is clearly not the case as Japanese students seek to hone their arts in world-class schools all over the globe, on an individual basis, but as a culture we do stereotype that group with certain inclinations. Well, from the eyes of Americans, maybe it extends to all East Asians.

I mean, here’s another way to say it. If you want to talk about the music in Sakamichi no Apollon, you better be, at the minimum, racially aware of the things that comes out of your mouth. Because saying things like this is…unfortunate. Please just don’t.

Let’s try again. Talking about jazz in Sakamichi no Apollon is fundamentally a discussion that will involve race. And what makes me laugh is when I heard that “coon” language in episode 4, I laughed. It’s an Inception meme of a Japanese attempt at portraying American White-Black racism IRT jazz. Which is to say, Sakamichi no Apollon plays like an Asian when it comes to racism. And in case my point isn’t clear, that phrase is no praise. But just like Japanese automotive engineering, it is almost invariably the case that we’ll get a quality product that will satisfy many, but doesn’t quite get to the heart of it. The soul. There’s nothing wrong with Sakamichi no Apollon, certainly no more wrong than being Japanese can be wrong. But it reminds me more of your average shoujo manga than anything that I’ve seen or read in media that deals with racism. Much like hot rods like the 2014 NSX or the IS-F are likely no match to their European or American counterparts.

But as far as the game of race-music association goes, I think much can be said of jazz music and who played it in 1912, as well as who played in 2012. That it has got some kind of race tag to it. Except it’s kind of like how more white people listen to rap than black people in America?

Personally I could not really get myself to care about Apollon’s race themes, as I mentioned before, it feels like fanservice. Repeat it with me:  a Christian, half-American [boy] born out of wedlock. When I visited my alma mater a few years ago the undergrad jazz majors were putting on a show in the atrium of the building where I was. It is a school with a strong tradition in jazz, and the jazz majors there were predominately black (more because it is a cheap state school located in an urban area). But I saw a couple white dudes at the drums–which reminded me of my undergrad roomie who played the drum for the jazz club (at a different school), a white, upper-class New Englander. Does it matter? Do we even know what it means, as Akira pointed out?

Now when it comes to classism, I can expect anime and manga to get it right.

22 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture, Sakamichi no Apollon

May 2, 2012

Seiyuu Senryaku

By omo

About 2 years ago I begin to follow some people, either via tumblr or twitter or soup or some such, who post pictures of seiyuu. As more and more radio shows and events get broadcasted via Nico or Ustream or whatever, more images have been popping up beyond the usual semi-pin-up scans from the various seiyuu magazines, blogs, and what have you. Actually with things like twitter and iPhone proliferating in Japan, there has been a lot more images floating out there just because. There are even more seiyuu mags nowadays compared to 2 years ago.

I’m not sure why this is the case, but as I alluded previously there is a distinct 2.5D advantage for seiyuu. The recent seiyuu boom, at any rate, coincides with me trying to learn the names of all the “popular” voice actresses via following image blogs. You know, the average blog might label the people in the photos, and half the time it’d be written the way it is. And it’s as good of a time to learn it as any.

It was somewhat of a learning curve since as far as recognizing kanji it is not a big deal for me. What was the big deal is remembering what the name is suppose to spell out as. Names are tricky after all because they don’t always say what you think they say. I still remember when I first started I probably recognize only 20% or so of what’s out there. Now?

Here is a list of popular voice actresses that I saw this morning (sorted by the # of roles they had in 2011 I believe). And I can recognize them all now! This is notable because for the longest time I have followed the seiyuu scene (albeit from afar) but it isn’t until recently that I started recognizing their names in Japanese.

I might still make fun of people learning Japanese through anime, but I don’t doubt its impact (which seems to be proportional only to how much effort you put in learning and working with the foreign language). Perhaps, this is more a demonstration of the power of mokkori in the educational context. I think.

 

3 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

April 30, 2012

Power of Anime, Spring Edition

By omo

Looking at the spring season…of 2011? If just briefly. A US-centric, industry postmortem.

Someone once said that overall, the late-night anime business generally makes money. With Occult Academy due out in May, that marks the US release of all the Anime no Chikara anime. And that’s a good thing–all three shows have at least some redeeming value, demonstrating the power of anime to some degree. I’m going to assume they are making and going to make money for their licencors back home for a while yet.

This is the same power that enamored the neophytes with the new Lupin the Third anime, some of them having seen 3 or fewer hours of any other Lupin work to date. This is the same reason why Kyoto Animation’s Hyouka is not a call for tar and feathering, it is staving off 2ch otaku second-guessing those old-capitol animator lords on their high-riding horses. It is the same way that idols are going 2.5D.

Yamakan’s laughable exercise of Fractale is also due out in America. Will it sell? I know I will contribute my one out of 686 units. Along side with much of the hoard from 2010/2011, as struggling production major player Funimation slowly churn out these shows for its localized release. And in that sense I thought it is pretty representative–Nozomi got Soranowoto; Sentai nabbed Night Raid; NISA took Occult Academy. These three studios are relatively new-comers, with very different profiles. And while I can’t say anything about Sentai, there are no DBZ or FMA or One Cash Cow holding up the rest for those. There are just a variety of better selling shows and poorer selling shows. It is our future, in that while one could always say that the entertainment industry is propped up by that one hit, this does not have to be the case with this otaku-centric business model, and I think a lot of us benefit from this.

And speaking of Fractale (of Funi), a random sampling of 2011 Spring pickups also says Anohana is NISA, Madoka is Aniplex, and Gosick was Bandai and now is in limbo. I think this is a good way to slice things up, and it really shows some weird sense of market competitiveness. It’s almost like the handing-off-of batons from one generation to another–clearly, some people license the wrong shows. And on the flip side I count my lucky stars that these companies generally licensed the right shows for them.

I feel that Funimation does a good job, generally speaking, with their releases, from the marketing end. Especially with the traditional fanservice-heavy shows. I thought their push for Strike Witches was spirited; comparatively the push for AsoIku not as much, but still, it happens. But they need to quit sitting on these simulcasts and get a move on with their releases.

Ultimately, it is new and exciting new licenses that energizes the fanbase and bring in revenue.

On the bright side, right now there’s real market diversity in terms of who is selling what, and we have FUNi to thank. They’re really serving it up to that 25-75 anime fan segment and leaving most of the rest alone. Unfortunately this is also reason to concern in that not everything is available in every single way. It remains the distant Avalon, a place promised in our filesharing days.

TL;DR – We’ve come so far, but we still have much to go.

PS. Speaking of the 25-percentile, did you see those Ghibli Blu-ray Disc releases lined up for May? US domestic? I did and I’m like ＼(・ω・)／Let’sにゃー！

4 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom

April 26, 2012

Wolves and Koko Puffs

By omo

When I was reading about people’s first reactions to Jormungand the animation, some compared it to Spice & Wolf. I didn’t really see the comparison being valid beyond the superficial similarity of having a strong personality of a woman in the context of the intrigue of bartering. But after 3 episodes, I see where the real similarity lies.

Koko is a wolf. In fact she is the wolf that Horo never seems to be, at least after 3 volumes of the novels. It’s how far I’ve read in Spicywolf before giving up.

By wolf I mean, perhaps, the best example of wolf that anime keeps on using: the fable of the Little Red Riding Hood. This is the human wolf–a wolf pretending to be a person in order to achieve the wolf’s wolf-y goals. Which is usually about being a wolf’s survival, or desire to eat somebody, or some such.

An example of the Little Red symbology in play is Jin-Roh. And Jin-Roh is, by all means, the best fictional depiction of what it means to be a wolf, in my humble opinion, in the context of Japanese pop culture. It’s a little more psychologically edgier than the simple “ronin” or lone wolf concept, which is more about the individualism that we Americans associate with our cultural heritage. Indeed, in order to appear wolf-like, these individuals have to exist alongside with normal human beings, and even work with them. It is very hard to act aloof and deceptive if there’s nobody close to you. It’s why the Big Bad Wolf gets to have a conversation with Little Red Riding Hood. The culture of fitting in, as it is in Japan, makes the wolf blend in to his or her environs easier. It’s the wolf’s disguise.

Koko is rather the exception in that regard. She stands out like a sore thumb at a glance. Her manic smile is clearly a sign of something is odd about this one. Some might even consider her moe, which is probably running against the grain in a Black Lagoon-like setting. Koko’s wider-than-usual mouth makes me asks why she has such a wide mouth. The childish and girly exterior betrays the calculating and pragmatic mind it carries. To that extent it is already less of a wolf-in-sheepskin as much as just a wolf (as opposed to Jin-Roh, where the “wolf” is actually a wolf pretending to be a sheep inside a wolf’s skin). She is clearly a wolf among wolves, except this wolf looks like a sheep.

Indeed, Koko, why do you have such a big mouth?

The setup is pretty nice given that we’re seeing the story developing as a relationship between Koko and Jonah. Jonah looks like a wolf, too, but I suppose we’ll get to see if Jonah only looks the look or not. For starters, he might not even rock the look that Koko does.

There’s a lot to like, for me, about Koko and Jormungand the anime. It’s great to see Iwasaki being fun to listen to again. It’s unfortunate that the radio drama cast didn’t carry over again but I’ll live. Koko’s shotacon ships also adds to that wolf-ness, don’t you think? Like, she’s gonna eat him whole? LOL. I think White Fox’s got a solid hit on their hands again.

PS. If you’ve never seen Oshii & Okiura’s masterpiece Jin-Roh, go knock yourself out on Hulu. Or import the re-release Blu-ray!

4 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Jormungand, Modern Visual Culture