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Japan to Sponsor International Manga Contest?
antifoidulus writes "According to Yahoo! news Japan is trying to boost its image abroad by promoting manga and anime, including possibly an international manga contest. They are also trying to double the number of people who eat Japanese food at least once a year to 1.2 billion(about 10x the population of Japan). While the article states that in the west the appeal of Japan is increasing, Japan is still having problems with its relations to fellow Asian countries such as China and South Korea."
... Japan is overrated.
It's... just a country... with some neat cartoons. Granted, there's a lot to appreciate about Japanese culture, but there's a lot to appreciate about most cultures.
Wednesday, must be a bleach day.
i know its not totally legal, but look at the dvds and tshirts I have... I've definately spend £150 on anime in the last 3 years of loving it. All because of the internet, LANs and some Naruto AMV I watched that totally threw anime for me: its not just for kids.
Even the justice league's pretty complicated. Their technobable is far more realistic and believable than 24's "Jack, I've opened you a socket through to the DOD computer I hacked"...
Matt
All the best and most important Mangas are found in Bethlehem.
Oh, wait...
Sorry, that's "Mangers".
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Japan is still having problems with its relations to fellow Asian countries such as China and South Korea
No shit? Might that have something to do with the evil behavior of Japan back during the 1930's through 1940's? City named Nanjing ring a bell? Forcing large numbers of young Korean women to serve as sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army?
I'm something of a Japanophile, I'm working on a degree in East Asian Studies (focused on Japan), I'm learning the Japanese language, and I'll eventually be doing international law (again, focused on Japan). Point is I like Japan. But I can definately see how people from the nations Japan invaded during WWII would feel differently. They've got to get over it, just like the people in Europe had to get over their anti-German feelings, but their feelings are understandable.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
* whistles innocently and hopes like hell nobody mentions that little fracas with all the heroin *
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Remember, though, that the Germans have done a far bigger sackcloth-and-ashes repentance routine since the war than have the Japanese. I gather they still officially deny what happened at Nanking, which is scarcely conducive to good relations. Then there was that business last year with the rather... questionable content of some of their high school history books. From what I see there's still a huge problem with the attitude of the Japanese themselves to the war... sure, they 'regret' it, so we hear whenever they almost but not quite apologise. But it sometimes seems like what they regret is that they lost.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Don't they know that it's not manga if it's created outside of Japan? I have that on the best authority from Issue #247 of Japanophile Monthly.
Japan does not officially deny the Nanjing massacre, but there are members of the Diet who do, and other officials, notably the major of Tokyo does. Prime Ministers, Emperors and other officials have given individual apologies to China, SK &c., but when prime minister Murayama proposed an official apology (jp:shazai) from the Diet in 1995, it was beaten down by the LDP, with 47% of the Diet voting against and 26% voting for it. Someone must have to tell me which politicians have used the word "shazai" referring to apologies, instead of just "hansei". Right-wing politicians: they're stuck-up nationalists no matter which country they're in. On the other side, Chinese and Koreans are often only vaguely aware of the facts regarding Japanese apology statements, and may believe that no Japanese officials have ever apologized; particularly in China, the propaganda machine is well-oiled. People in Japan, China, SK, NK of course, will all believe exactly those spun "facts" that support their own views, and those views are more often than not those which excuse their own actions or comdemn their opponents'. nakayokushirotteba!
Lalala
How about the Japanese government either encourages more anime producers to provide English translation of their works and license distribution - or - legitimize fansub distributions via some formal mechanism (creative commons?). Perhaps some of both.
[Insert pithy quote here]