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NDK2K: Colorado's Anime Convention
Tetsujin28 writes: "TETSUJIN.ORG has a report on Nan Desu Kan 2K, Colorado's anime convention, which took place on October 13 - 15. The anime forecast for the next year? Cars, more cars, and cuteness." Highlights of the gathering included a concert by Mari ("Voice of Lynn Min-Mei") Iijima, appearances by movers and shakers in the manga and anime field, and previews of upcoming films. A cool report -- wouldn't everyone like to dub their own anime? And funny, too: In the costume contest, "[i]t may be more noteworthy that of just over 100 contestants, there were no fewer than nineteen Sailor Scouts."
Capt. Ron
crazy dynamite monkey
Absolutely.
It's better to not understand than to think you do, and be wrong, though. One friend of mine sees Lain and goes "This is so lame, it's just a basic statement of existentialism, borrowing heavily from Descartes' theories and then repeating itself."
To which I reply "Good, good, except for the repeating part. You know, you might just catch the rest of it if you watched it instead of complaining and pseudointellectialy posturing the whole time."
"But why should I watch it, it's just been repeating from the first episode!" he says. Waargh!
Perfect Blue on the other hand. Wow, I'd have to say that's the first time I've seen a movie that left me profoundly disturbed. That's a REAL horror movie. (CREEPY side note: The guy who can't stand Lain called the ending in the first 10 minutes of the show. I know for a fact he hadn't seen it before. Weird.)
If you think that is funny do a search on whitehouse or intern. Personally, I think everyone who works in the whitehouse or is an intern or is japanese must be a porn star or peddler of pornographic material.
ACK
Why do people assume anime will appeal to people who are technologically sophisticated? I wonder how many readers find this to be relevant news. News for Nerds... hmmm... it isn't news, an it doesn't seem to be "stuff that matters." Anime = mass produced, low-talent artwork with minimal updates per frame = mass produced garbage
...more like the emotional charge of "Linux geek." (Seriously, I can't think of a better example.) I've met normal people from Japan who have otaku friends. (The term they use, too.) It's considered a bit weird, but now that the stigma is gone from the Miyazaki (Tsutomu) killings, it's pretty much equivalent to geek.
lol - actually i said Larimer cause i think that would be the only place downtown out-of-staters might possibly have heard of.
Actually, i think the whole of downtown is sort of a yuppie-mart anymore.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Besides, most of the anime that has impossibly large breasts or other anatomical regions (with the exception of noses and eyes ;-) as a central feature isn't worth watching. In most of the good stuff (Macross Plus, Gundam 0080, Captain Harlock, Serial Experiments Lain, Vampire Princess Miyu, and Vision of Escaflowne, to name a few), almost all of the characters are fairly realistically proportioned. Even in the good fantasy or fantasy/comedy anime, things aren't any worse than they are in comprable American art. Except in specific cases... Naga from Slayers comes to mind, but she's (from what I've seen) a take-off of the sterotypical evil sorceress of American fantasy. You just have to take one look at her outfit to see this.
Lets put it this way: it all depends on what you watch. Just like it does for (gasp!) live action movies/TV. The main reason "girls with big breasts" is associated with anime is because that's what the American media likes to paint it as (at the same time insisting that animation is for kids only), and because that's what they try to limit imports to. I seem to recall someone mentioning to me that if you look back before big American companies got involved in distributing anime, things were a lot different.
-RickHunter
They're SENSHI! They're soldiers, not cookier-sellers! ^_^ (Sorry, I'm one of those SailorMoon freaks, and I despise the dub.)
I don't see how anime has anything to do with linux, nerds, open source, or nerds. Waste of my time.
Slipping Away...
Arguably even more successful than Takahashi, we have this all-female team, with such credits to their collective name as X1999, RG Veda, Tokyo Babylon, and so forth.
Oh, and that one they don't like people mentioning: a little thing called Rayearth. But come on, they can't be totally perfect, now can they?
----------
three words:
supply and demand
Who needs a modded DVD player? My untampered set-top DVD player is for American discs, and my Creative DVD player in my PC is for Japanese disks (the installer lets you choose what region you are in). Video card outputs into the TV and voila, multiregion DVD watching goodness.
Actually, I looked into it a while back. Robotech II: The Sentinels looked pretty cool how it was panning out. They had both the old cast as older captain-types, and new characters to be heroic and all. The new mecha were cool, the Zentradi were on the good guys (with revamped battle pods), and there were tons of freaky aliens. That, and the Invid make much better bad guys then the Zentradi. That, and I like how they mixed the mecha from all 3 series into the fleet (Hovertanks from Southern Cross, Cyclones & Alphas from Invid, and a new SDF, battle pods, and destroids). And its got Praxians. Yesssss, Praxians. Amazon space-babes riding mechanical horses, what more do you want?
Yes, the OAV sucked, but they really didn't get the plot underway. I mean, it was a wedding and a ship disembarking, wtf would you expect from the first 4 episodes of what was planned to be a very long series.
True, in american comics and animation things aren't that much difference. Look at the women in X-men, etc.
-lx
Thanks for your input. I disagree. End of conversation.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The hot, scantily-clad chicks help out a lot.
...was the headline in the campus newspaper for our own local anime festival. The article is good for many laughs.
I missed it this year...
;)
Money, the root of all frustration.
I was crazy enough to take greyhound to it last year,
24 hours each way.
The things I liked most about MDK'99 were the
Japanese culture seminars.
(Yes, I know this is about MDK'2K, but I can only speak of what I know).
Last year, I hit two different japanese language classes
(which convinced me that I could indeed learn it),
a taiko (drum) demo, cooking seminar (which was a bit interesting at that altitude),
and I know I missed a lot more because I had my ass camped out in viewing rooms the rest of the time.
One of the best con's I've hit.
And not to sound like a mega-troll, but to those who missed it,
always assume there is an anime con the next weekend,
check any anime sites you know of (www.anipike.com comes to mind first).
Be proactive, hunt down the cons, and don't give up until you have their head on a stick.
Even if it's just a small one you have to drive a day to get to,
it's a new experience, a chance to meet other otaku,
and above all, to watch more anime.
Why not warn us of this? I would have went(I live in denver) but only see reports... Reports are reports. Forwarning is News... idiots...
I agree with you 100% People are just being sheep. "what? everyone else on my block likes anime? Well then I guess its cool. I am going to start liking it too!"
I could see how a 10 year old might like it. I used to like GI Joe, but come on, I haven't watched that since I was 12.
Slipping Away...
I know this is sort of not on topic exactly, but as a HUGE Macross fan, I'm wondering if we'll ever get new RoboTech episodes. Wouldn't that be cool?
Fawking Trolls!
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." - Jed Babbin
I also noticed that anime topics on slashdot always have the least number of posts than any other subject. Just showing you where slashdotter's interests are....
Slipping Away...
I've been a fan of Anime/Manga/Japanimation ever since I first watched StarBlazers as a kid. But one thing I've been puzzled about for some time is how Manga and Anime relate, and how the two terms came about.
Or is it merely a matter of semantics?
"I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up."
what does anyone see in anime? personally, only complaints come to my mind while watching it.
here are a few things i dislike about anime:
- terrible dialogue - i understand that something must be lost in the translation, but come on...the essential meaning of the words remains. the dialogue in japanese cartoons is abysmal. it is very poorly refined. scenes drag on and on with simple banter and 'jokes' in which only small children could actually find humour. frankly, i think a group of mentally handicapped americans could come up with dialogue of similar quality
- poor plots - all of the anime i have been unfortunate enough to view has been mind-numbingly basic and/or just plain stupid. how anyone can find it engaging is beyond me. a plot point which would be assumed/glanced over in an american production is explored at length in an anime. ugh...i suppose this is true of most asian cinema.
- bad animation - a talking character's mouth will usually animate at a few frames per second, in an open-shut-open-shut manner; motion-blur effects suddenly appear behind characters, seemingly for no reason; designs that would never even be considered outside japan...the characters, landscapes and objects are mostly bland, uninspired, ugly and/or simply stupid in appearance
in all, i cannot find any redeeming qualities. at least disney has high standards for its animation...anime has nothing. someone should introduce the concept of fine theatre to the japanese...have they even heard of shakespeare over there?Smart people inclined to agree WOULDNT BE READING THE DAMN ANIME CRAP!!!
If you want to find out about upcoming anime conventions, try EventNation.com. They had Nan Desu Kan listed there, and I know they have some others as well.
On the other hand, anime (especially manga) has historically been no better than pornography[...]
Maybe most of the anime/manga you have heard about and seen is pornography. However, that's not representative of the genre as a whole. Hentai makes up a disproportionate amount of the anime and manga exported simply because sex sells. The distributors and exporters of manga are obviously going to ship titles that sell the most units, porn or no porn.
I agree that some anime and manga portray women as nothing more than sex objects, often in very disgusting ways. But there are also many others that feature female characters with normal breast sizes and roles in which, rather than being subservient to a male, they are the lead or otherwise main character. Find some Serial Experiments Lain, Nadesico (to a certain extent), or even older stuff like Bubblegum Crisis and you'll see what I mean.
the coolest club on
On the other hand, anime (especially manga) has historically been no better than pornography: it systematically dissects women into their component anatomical parts, except they're just fictionaly women
Complete rubbish. How much anime/manga have you seen? If that were the case, why would there be so many female manga authors, female manga readers, and female anime convention attendees?
Why is this the highest moderated comment I see? It's such a troll it's not funny.
:)
But I'll bite
Here's a tip: Don't like cartoon chicks with big eyes/tits? Don't watch manga. You know, funnily enough, I'm not a giant axe bastard who can pull mad Kung Fu moves, I can't kill people by frowning at them and shaking, and I've never survived a "full orbital response". But you don't hear me complaining about how unrealistic the portrayal of blokes is.
If all women felt that porn was degrading, there'd be a whole lotta gay porn and nothing else, but they don't, so why should your views be forced on them? What if I feel that whatever you do for a living degrades people in general- would you quit to keep me happy? Would I ask you to?
Don't believe in porn? Then don't watch it, don't act in it, and do your best to keep your SO/kids away from it (if that's relevant).
And don't compare this sort of art to porn, just to troll, or because you don't appreciate it for what it is.
Basically, if the women didn't have big eyes, little waists and (not really all that often) big jugs, it wouldn't be manga. That's what japanese people as a whole like to watch, so that's what they produce. Nobody in nihon is ramming these cartoons down your throat.
Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Besides us, Anime Nation offers 20% off VHS and 15% off DVD, and they carry some merchandise often enough.
Just don't buy from places like Buy.com and Express.com. Not only have I heard horror stories of long backorders and not getting shipments because one title went on backorder, and not wanting to pay two or three shipping rates to get them (geez, whatever happened to customer service on these?), but buying from such large entities who don't know about anime much or don't focus on it means you're probably only going to be able to get the mainstream titles. Buy from someone like AnimeNation or us (Dragon Magic), and you start getting to see titles which may never be mainstream, but are worthwhile to watch.
Just for a good laugh, in fact, just view or rent these titles, and if you like them, get them for your library and help spread the word of good quality anime:
I could probably make a very extensive list, but these three should tie anyone over. As well, they're relatively inexpensive (only Rurouni Kenshin TV presently available simultaneously on DVD, but all planned or being released on DVD).
But really, Anime is not too expensive. It's only pricey in the big retailers who know that it's not a mainstream market, merely a niche one, and realize that discounts aren't worth it. No one else is giving them, right? Plus they don't sell well to begin with in the "50,000 titles of American Films" stores.
Support Anime (and lower prices) by shopping Anime stores. Simple enough, nee?
Dragon Magic
Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different. -- Earl of Chesterfield
A fan's view is a pretty good site for pictures from cons.
A problem... how?
With violence against women (rape, etc) being so widely depicted in Japanese literature/pop culture (well, according to you at least)... then according to Political Correctness there should be a HUGE problem with it in real life. Monkey See, Monkey Do, right?
Of course the real problem is that last time I checked the US had a much worse problem with that than Japan.
As usual, the Blameless Society is actually to blame for it's own actions.
Moof!
lol - i wouldn't exactly compare lodo to 5-points. Although i wouldn't exactly compare 5-points to places like east St. Louis or South Chicago.
people go to larimer, market, and 16th street because they're social creatures. Me? I'm anti-social. i go to larimer to laugh at the guy with the two gigantic mustangs painted poorly on the side of his green GT. i go to laugh at the guys who deliberately mistune their hogs and ducatis so they break every noise ordinance in the fsckin' city when they peel out.
And like the other guy said. the women in 'fuck me' pants don't hurt either.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
I saw this on a shirt at Otakon this year...
Anime: Only slightly more expensive than drugs!
If only people were more aware of the intrinsic relationship between art and effects on society as a whole, then we might be a littl slower to choose to make that buck at the expense of our common weal.
:-)
That was such a nicely written troll that it deserves a reply.
Two points:
(i) With very few exceptions, anime is fiction, set in fictional worlds or universes, with fictional characters involved in fictional situations, and the characters are very commonly non-human or otherwise exceptional in some way. We sometimes identify with one or more of them to a limited degree within the context of the fiction ("identify" may be too strong a word, maybe "sympathize" or "empathize" are closer to the mark), but it almost never goes beyond that. Moreover, the identification is voluntary and personal. Nobody will identify a third party with a character in a cartoon, it just doesn't work that way, to the best of my knowledge. You are looking for demons where none exist.
(ii) Diversity is good. OK, that's just my moral standpoint and I don't have anything to back it up, except possibly the widely acknowledged benefits of genetic diversity. Be that as it may, if we accept your worries for the sake of argument, all you are doing is trying to impose your own particular set of values on others. There is no future in that. Universal morality always was a flawed concept in any case, but it seemed to prevail in the past simply because it drove alternative viewpoints underground and hence marginalized them. That's no longer possible: as a result of universal connectivity, alternative viewpoints blossom even out of sight of the majority and despite being ignored by the mass media. Diversity wins. You can still live in your own little world of fixed values, but I'm afraid that your wish to coerce others to those views no longer has much likelihood of success. There is no longer a single common weal. It has been replaced by an exploding constellation of different ones, each defining their own rights and wrongs.
[By the way, it was obviously a troll because anyone that can write as clearly as Anne Marie can also think clearly enough to analyse the situation for herself rather than just repeat mass propaganda and support a single-group viewpoint.]
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Anime is the Japanese short way of saying 'animation', which is an English word. Manga is a Japanese word meaning comics.
In other words, those 2 words represent cartoons in motion form and in still paper form. You can get the said cartoons aimed at audiences ranging from children to adults.
You sound like that woman that tried to sue South Park because her 10 yr old kid was named Kenny and had trouble with cartoon characters killing him every episode.
Just because Japanese pornographic cartoons are available doesn't mean the whole genre is a big conspiracy to degrade women all over the world. You may also like to know that there are manga targeted at teen girls which depict the male body too.
Historically, anime and manga draw lots of inspiration from Disney. Note the large eyes and giant heads (in proportion to the rest of the body) are all drawn from early Disney cartoons.
So in conclusion, it would be good if you looked at all that is available, instead of a small portion you don't like and tagging the whole genre as evil.
---
Oh God! That was probably a spoof called "Voltron: Hellbent for Leather"! We watched that at one of me HS's anime fairs last year. F'in hilarious!
DON'T BUY FROM SUNCOAST They charge full MSRP, which for most anime is $30/disc. 90% of anime released in the US is dubbed/subbed, dvd mastered, and mass produced here in the States, it's just that the market isn't really that big, so prices are high. Either buy online from some small retailers (www.animenation.com), maybe buy.com, or even (horror of horrors) amazon.com (this is why i hate one-click. makes it too easy to buy anime/manga!) They're all at least $5-$10 cheaper.
Heck, even in "mainstream" American movies, there's sometimes a lot more violence/blood and nudity/sex than American media likes to claim there is in anime. For some generally interesting articles about anime, This Page is a good place to start. The author's views differ from mine in a few places, but its still mostly well-written.
-RickHunter
Dude anime sucks, You have no taste what so ever and your a total loser
Slipping Away...
I personally enjoy Fanime and A-kon, they are a little smaller and seem a little more 'fan friendly', without the feedbag treatment of some of the larger conventions.
Fan-run cons are much better to attend IMHO, because although they may not have the big name people coming, those running it are REALLY passionate about their hobby, and do everything to make sure everyone has a blast.
Call on God, but row AWAY from the rocks!
Yes, pretty much. See details at The Un-Official #WASHU# Page.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Sorry, I'm just not up on this anime trend. Can someone tell me the correct pronounciation?
you know. in retrospect. i think i'm just afraid that those lusers will have more people at their funeral than i will.
thought for the day: when you die, your friends won't miss you. they'll miss who they were when they were with you.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
If only Best Buy had the kind of stock levels in anime that Suncoast did, but that's Economics 101 for you: supply and demand. At Best Buy's prices, they can't keep most anime on the shelves (not that they try, beyond ordering Ghost in the Shell a dozen at a time). But I have never seen a copy of Trigun in stock at Best Buy. :(
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
How many of them were overweight? How many of them were (choke, gag) male? How many of them (whimper) tried to sing?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Oh? Do tell. I'd love to get my hands on this spoof, if at all possible.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
Uh, why don't you just exclude the "Anime" thing in your slash thingee? It'd be easier...
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
I saw this somewhere once. Don't remember where.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
My, you do display quite the narrow view of an incredibly diverse art form. That's much like saying all videos or magazines are historically nothing more than pornography. Juse because you live in a country that refuses to acknowledge or import the wide selection of the anime and manga products that Japan offers to it's local markets, you jump to assumption that the small smattering of titles you see there represent the whole of the industry. Talk about stereotyping or disecting something into anotomical parts... I would suggest doing a bit of research on a topic before jumping to conclusions. Anime and Manga are heavlily intermixed in Japan and often redundant. Japan has a HUGE selection of manga marketed directly at/for young women, can the US claim such a market for cartoons and comics? Manga also has huge markets in young and old men with sports titles/themes that have less sexual content than sesame street let alone sports illustrated. That's not even touching on the titles for working women, housewives, cooking or general entertainment. Anime and manga touch on much more than you would allow people (and possibly yourself) to think. There is no doubt that there is a pornographic market as well, but that's more like 3% of the marketplace. Now if you want to count showing a womans breasts in an onsen (Japanese hot springs), you might want to consider some of the less puritanical societies that exist in the world.
Right, and what is in there is that you either watched a truly wild ride with no more than 5 minutes of the 10 hours were from the same source, or that your current sources suck. I mean sure, the more you've seen, the fewer truly new conceps will occur, but really, the same is true for literature and moviemaking. "All the good stories have already been told" and such...
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Actually, as used in Japan, it describes any animated film, including Disney stuff.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Hiroki Hayashi of AIC. Co-creator of Tenchi, creator of El-Hazard and more directing credits.
Tanaka-san of AIC. Sound director for Rurouni Kenshin, Hand Maid May, etc.
Aro-sensei, manga-ka.....
n .g.m.o.r.e.o.r
ADV's announcement that they had taken the rights to Sailor Moon away from DIC was well-recieved.
Below are more details about Maho Yugi, Hayashi's new series.
First of all, for those of you who don't
want to bother to read the rest, here
are the highlights..
1) El Hazard is _done_. To quote Mr. Hayashi
(creator of El-Hazard). "Makoto goes back.....
that's it...they live happily ever after."
2) AIC is planning on a new Tenchi OVA,
(This probibly means that they are in the investor
stage right now) early next year. Hayashi-san
will not be involved with it, but he thought that
the other creator (Mr. Kajishima) might be.
3) Mr. Hayashi is working on a new Anime
entitled "Mahou Yugi" (Magical Play or Magical
Games). This anime loooks really really cool.
Partially this is because the entire Anime is
100% redered, and then CG-shaded. They can
do some pretty impresive shots that were never
possible w/ Cells (or at least, not very fesable.
Hayashi thought that they were about 6-9
months away from finishing it (not
neccessarily releasing it.)
Ok More details:
Mr. Hayashi and Mr. Kazuya Tanaka were invited
to NDK in colorado this year. I had the pleasure
of working with them for about 5 days for the con.
For the record, Both of them are just a blast to have
around. Mr. Hayashi is really laid back, a lot of fun
and very approachable. Mr. Tanaka is also a blast
to have around, and is very energetic ^.^
Hayashi-san directed Sol Bianca, Tenchi, El-Hazard,
Daiundokai, BGC2040 (as well as some of the original)
and more series then I can count. He also created some
of these series (Tenchi and El-Hazard in particular).
Tanaka-san did sound direction on anime's like the
new Sol Bianca, Rurouni Kenshin etc.
Hayashi-san speaks fairly good english.
Maho Yugi has to be seen (in motion) to believe.
Some of the animation stuff they can do is amazing,
and they come up with some shots that you never
think about when you are doing anime. The animation
is incredibly fluid, and while your mind knows that it
is CG, none of the usual problems (anti-aliasing,
"blurryness", etc) show up in the animation.
There was a AIC promo tape that had a high number
of series and remakes that I have never heard of before.
AIC has definitly returned to their original genre (Girls
w/ Guns) and there were two different new series that
just smaked of BGC.
ADV announced that they now had the rights to Sailor
Moon, and Sailor Moon R, not DIC.
Cowboy Bebop 25/26 aired at the con...... aiyaaaaaa.
...................i.c.a.n.t.s.a.y.a.n.y.t.h.i.
...................i.w.o.u.l.d.s.p.o.i.l.y.o.u.
Mari Ijima was there, but I never had enough time to hit
her concerts...
I think that above does it.
Next year is going to be a blast. Find out more Here . Pre-registration forms are up.
Here is a bit more from my write up on the TenchiML (A fan group for the Series Tenchi Muyo
Well, from what I can see even those prices are pretty good. Don't know if a lot of US anime fans realize, but collecting anime is _expensive_. More so if you like original Japanese releases. The fact is, anime sold in Japan is actually more expensive than what you get in other countries.
An average new release DVD here is around US$40-50. Even second hand ones don't go for much less than US$30 or so.
Of course, the nice thing about all the DVD releases is that LDs are really cheap here now - I go prowling for second hand LDs a lot, and often get them for 1500yen or less...
But I may go to one, in any event.
Also, why is it that when an anime-topic gets posted, normally sane slashdot posters all of a sudden turn TROLL? They go off on a tangent criticizing it, asking why it's here, saying it sucks probably never having seen ANYTHING of worth (you know robotech/speed racer are old now, don't you?).
I would ask all trolls to please go away.
*sacrificing my karma, for the sake of curiosity*
I think perhaps that watching all 4 hours of Urotsukidoji, this wonderful coming of age anime, will assuage your fears about the delightful sub-genre known as "Hentai". Many fans find it's philosophical plot too heavy for the "lite" aspect that is so prevalent of much anime, but I think that for you it is "just right".
Hey, you think your house is cool?
I assume by "new crop of feminists" you mean people like Susie Bright, Camille Paglia and the fine folks at Good Vibrations. Perhaps you more enjoy the old school feminists like everyone's favorite rabid anti-porn activist, Andrea Dworkin? There's nothing inherently wrong with the medium, and there's also nothing inherently wrong with women in the medium having impossibly large breasts. If you look at traditional japanese art, all the way back to wood prints, anatomy was greatly exaggerated for both men and women, and is in anime as well.
Look at ancient japanese art and you'll see that men were depicted as having such huge members that most would have a hard time keeping their balance. In most modern pornographic or semi-adult anime, the same is true - however, most men don't run around with inferiority complexes about it, complaining that they feel objectified or sub-par because they don't have 20 penises and a 9-inch tongue like the fellows in the movies. Art does not affect society as strongly as you're suggesting.
It's a very old debate whether art reflects or influences society, but I think it comes down to the fact that you're responsible for your own beliefs and actions. Fact is that no one's forcing you to be degraded, and you're not being oppressed. To roughly quote Eleanor Roosevelt, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
-lx
If you don't like it, don't watch it, then.
If there's something that I've liked about anime, is that it is much more free, than western artforms, in that it doesn't consciously try to teach a moral (or at least the same morals). The best part of it, is that it is pretty far away from political correctness.
Just face it, Political Correct Anime, would just be the same plain boring stuff that you see on american tv.
Also I find it very ironic that you mention women being oppressed in America. Real facts prove, that it is men that are being oppressed, and that your behavior is just driving this oppression, with real consequences such as an alarmingly high suicide rate among american males. For the real facts, about oppression, see here, and here.
I got a Neon Genesis Evangelion in a 3 DVD set comprising all episodes from Genesis1 to End for HK$220.00 (about fourty-eight cents in US money!). The death and rebirth ones were available on another DVD for HK$80.00.
The prices will bring tears to the eyes of those of you complaining about US prices!
Catch the MTR (Mass Transit Rail) to Kwun Tong station (green line). On one side of the station there is an elevated walkway approx 100m long from approx the _middle_ of the station (don't take the one off the end of the station) over to a small shopping centre. In that centre, there are two DVD/VCD shops devoted to anime, and a whole stack of others with DVD/VCD movies and even a bit of dodgy porn. No sign of any copied stuff though - all legit. A spot well worth a visit if you're in HK.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I'm also in Japan right now, and you apparently ride the wrong trains (to Roppongi maybe? :). Hentai/pornography is definitely less than 10% of what I see, both on trains and in bookstores.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Personally, I've been into the Anime since...sheesh, I've been watching it so long that I've forgotten exactly when I initially began watching.
I think that it was Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets). Not the double-utchered Toonami version, but the original import to the US where the littlest member of the group spoke in "bleeps"and "tootles".
After that, I got into TranzorZ, and a couple other imports to american TV (usually on a couple of the barely-established UHF channels in the Chicagoland area at the time).
Then I saw Robotech. Purists say what you will about what Carl Macek did to the three series and "combining" it into Robotech. It remains, for most people, their initial introduction into the world of Japanese Animation (c'mon, if you don't like transformable mecha, you're dead or a vegetable).
About that time, I began delving into imports and received a nasty shock (the prices and the scarcity of importers). It was WAY more than my parents were willing to invest, just to have me vegetate in front of the boob-tube. I was encouraged to get a better (read cheaper) hobby.
I got reintroduced to it while I was in the Army. I saw so much bootleg Anime in Korea (due to extremely stringent laws on japanese imports to South Korea) that I was hooked. Once I got back to the states, my collection began growing at a dangerous pace. Mostly the stock stuff, since I didn't have a lot of exposure to the medium outside of the stuff I actually watched.
Then came my first Anime convention a couple years ago. AnimeCentral.
Unfortunately, I don't exactly make SCADS of money, and my time off is limited. But I try to make it to Acen every year now. Anime's an excellent medium, and much better than 99.9% of the crap shoveled down our throats by the networks today.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Sailor Moon and her cohorts
any and all Pokemon
wait a minute, they said cute, let me reconsider my entries
does pissy and annoying count?
--
Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know when your gonna get food poisoning.
thing is alot of anime isn't region coded
I just think that now that networks are starting to pick up anime that hopefully it will reach a larger audience. I just hope the genre does not get pigeonholed in the US the way the regular animation market has. If it does, there will always be the fansubs.
ACK
OK, I know I'm going to hear a lot of crap about import laws, transport cost, the weight of an unladen north american swalow and all that, but why is anime so F**kin expansive compared to regular movies? in our local market, say, Suncoast Video, anime on DVD is usualy about $10 more per than any other DVD's. If it's transport cost, couldent they just ship ONE copy over and mas-copy them here? Price fixing? Or is the anime market in this crapy midwest town just so thin that they have to jack the prices?
Dirty Pirate Hooker
*&^$%@#!!!#$(%_@ ass munches...this is like 10 mins from me and you didn't say crap til after it was over...Now I'm ticked!
no, accually 99.99% of anime is ment for 10 year olds. people are just fucking strange here in the USA, and seem to like it anyway
Slipping Away...
Wow... talk about generalization! I'm sure Miyazaki would be quite surprised to be told that women are dissected in his anime. Anime is simply a medium. There's romances, horror/slasher flicks, epics, etc. Very very few mainstream anime movies display what you're talking about. Maybe you should actually watch some before you spout off about them?
Why do you all reply to trolls? Even more interesting, why do you moderate them up consistantly? Anne Marie (Signal 11) is so Offtopic and Trollish in this post, it's not funny. (Or Interesting, or Insightful!)
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I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Your missing the point, not all anime is porn and
not all anime is degrading to women and men. In
everything there is the good and the bad and the fugly. Anime is just another art form that many
cultures have come to apreciate (sp).
My Boredom Has Outshined The Sun
#WASHU# One question. Where/what is it? I know (finally!) the character reference (Washu rules!), but is it some club or something?
La Blue Girl
I've never seen it, personally. But from those who like that sort of thing, they recommend it highly.
God, I sound like an old man sometimes
Capt. Ron
crazy dynamite monkey
thanks slashdot. now i get to sit on my ass drinkin' a beer on Larimer thinkin' "Why the fuck didn't they tell me about this thing a month ago?!?!?"
news it's so timely, you won't be able to experience it for another fsckin' year!!
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Capt. Ron
crazy dynamite monkey
Ooooh.
Aahhh.
Must be a really slow news day for something like this to make it. C'mon, guys. If you don't have good post material, leave it at that.
I remember years ago at a gaming con (I was there to play Civilization and StarFleet Battles) there was a video playing a Voltron episode, and one of the dubbed voices said (after seeing the destruction of his robot) "Aah! Now I get his parking spot!" That 0wned.
-- Count Spatula: The Culinary Vampire "...because my cooking sucks."
Are you sure you're not confusing Anime with the dodgier hentai/manga stuff? Anime itself just describes a particular drawing style, I thought.
Garbage and more garbage. This statistic compares average wage of all working males to average wage of all working females. Which is essentially useless. It doesn't compare the wages of women to men in the same job. Three kinds of lies and all that.
Vermifax
Vermifax
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This was a great concert, incidentally (yes, I was there). I frankly had _no_ idea that she had been Minmei in "Macross: Do You Remember Love?" until she asked if anyone had seen the movie (ironically, a lot of the younger fans there hadn't even been born in 1984), but it made my heart happy to have her sing a live version of the first Japanese (and anime) song I'd ever heard.
Yes, there were a ton of Sailor Moon outfits, but don't let that fool you into thinking the costumes were singleminded (or bad, since there were some very nice Sailor Senshi outfits). If you want to see them (especially the very cool Lodoss and Spawn costumes) check out A Fan's View
my gaffe, i fixed it
Two points:
1) The lag time between release in Japan and release in America is growing shorter as the genre becomes more popular and it becomes more profitable for companies to subtitle/dub and release them to the english speaking public.
2) Fansubs will continue to be made by capable otaku who want to make their favorite non-english-language-release-as-of-yet series/movies available.
Japanese women were given equal right relatively recently
Perhaps women in Japan have had equal rights for fifty years, but here in America there still are not equal rights! For every dollar that a man is paid, a woman is paid only 75 sents.
This is an outrage and cannot continue. So if you are a woman, please vote for Gore... he is the only one who will pass laws to fix this problem! And if you are a man, please vote only once.
Capt. Ron
crazy dynamite monkey
Sorry to spoil the party, but what is the anime crowd going to do in the United States when the DMCA is in full force, and they can not (legally) bypass region codes to view Japanese Anime?
Personally, I have imported compact audio discs from outside the US (including Japan). If these were DVD-audio disks, I likely would be unable to use them. Now granted, we were able to convince the powers-that-be that we wanted the real stuff once, but how often are we going to have to do this?
IMHO, a lot of this is kind of inherent in Japanese culture. Japanese women were given equal rights relatively recently as cultures in developed nations go (the treaty ending of WWII). As such Japan seems to have a whole lot of chauvenism hidden under is polite and distinguished exterior.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)