As for your comments that anime features simplified plot and generalized characters, you may be partly right- there are common themes like "big gun, big breasts", and "angsty boy with giant robot". However, in my (fairly wide-ranging) experience, anime is generally of much better quality that NA cartoons, especially in plot and character. While there are some horrifically bad ones, there are a large number of incredibly good ones, and we in NA have the great fortune of seeing most of these (on video, since one generally can't get SELain on cable).
Specifically, there are at least two or three directors (Miyazaki and Anno for sure) who break the molds and use anime to tell deep stories- and in my opinion, those 'bests' of anime far outshine the 'bests' of NA cartoons. They don't dumb down their shows for kids, so all ages are able to enjoy them (Totoro by Miyazaki is a kid's film that I highly recommend to anyone). Their non-kids shows are very philosophical (Evangelion, of course, but also Wings of Honneamise- Anno has an obsession with God/Christianity), and bear watching.
What I'm trying to say is that, while your plot/character argument has some validity, since there are some REALLY bad anime out there, you're making a generalization that's too broad. I would say that anime generally gears itself toward teen audiences, but unlike NA cartoons, they don't depend (as much) on sex, explosions, etc.
Plus, of course, the quality of animation in the TV anime series blows NA cartoons out of the water. Compare Ranma or Tenchi to any non-Japanese produced animated show airing on NA TV, and you'll find that the quality of the anime is generally much higher. In fact, many times the TV series are of better quality than some feature-length animations by the major houses (Disney's Aladdin 2 comes to mind, though that's a straw man). Then, if you go up the scale, to the OVAs (or OAVs, Original Video Animations/Animated Videos), halfway between TV and movie, the animation quality makes a spectacular jump. Animation quality-wise, OVAs beat out every NA movie animation I can think of except for those particularily well-done ones like Iron Giant. The final step, the movies, are gems that we have not seen the like of in NA. Walt Disney produced equivilant quality for his era, but the Japanese animation studios (Ghibli especially) surpass even that. The Card Captor Sakura movie, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, these films are unmatched for quality of animation.
Well, anyway, your claim isn't unfounded, but I think you may not have seen a lot of anime, since it is extremely wide-ranging in styles, plots, and to a lesser degree characters.
Well, I wasn't trying to debate American superiority, which seems to be your issue. What I was saying that, in general terms, I disagree with the idea of killing people, and that we should be wary of scientific advancements that are specifically designed to kill people. While I have my own views on how effective and needed the Bomb was back then, I think everyone agrees with me taht dying via atomic/nuclear weapon is a pretty crappy way to go.
To re-illustrate my point: you would think it sucky to die by nuke, right? If you weren't blasted to ash instantly, your body would rot away as the radiation poisoned you, etc. I mean, it's not a pretty way for ANYONE to go. I personally think that the world would be a lot less tense if we didn't have nukes to worry about- PLEASE don't start on how America needed to stomp Japan into the ground, that's not the point. I don't like the idea of nuclear war, so i'm using that as my comparison. WHY do we need MORE weapons in the world? If we don't need more weapons, then WHY are we researching them? For fun?
We need to start doing this: 1) think. 2) act. as opposed to the other way around. (the Nobel thing, for instance- "Hey! I created dynamite! Oh, wait a minute, I'm now responsible for indirectly causing a lot of deaths. Oops.")
Well, while I agree the shock value of the Bomb did end the war, I would point out that it did still kill people.
Now, hold off on the commie-accusation flames here, folks, until I'm done. The Bomb ended the war early. yay. in the end, less people total died. yay. I like that part. The non-yay part comes in here: the Bomb still killed people. Yeah, I know, it was war, blah blah. The Bomb still killed people. Sure, it lead to a decisive victory, the help of the Americans in rebuilding Japan, and a better quality of life fifty years later... but it STILL KILLED PEOPLE.
My point is not a morality lesson, so I'm not going to get into why I'm obsessive about the Bomb killing people, except: go watch some videos of Hiroshima, see if you can still say anything good about it. There, done.
NOW we come to my main point. It seems to my that many people involved in scientific research have a great deal of power. They create new technologies that increase our quality of life, and they create technologies like the Bomb. What frightens me is that, these days, we all seem to congratulate the scientists for EVERY discovery. Remember Spider-Man? "With great power comes great responsibility"? We seem to be developing a great many things these days without pausing to think about what they might be used for. I'm not saying we should halt scientific progress- God forbid. I am saying that instead of cheering the development of a new explosive, we should consider the ramifications of such a thing.
Internal combustion engine: great thing. fabulous. we can drive now, we have SUVs, who doesn't love their cars? The USE of vehicles inside cities contributes a great deal to th pollutants there. Irresponsible use of the engine on a large scale leads to traffic jams, and a poor quality of air. sure, the air may not be killing anyone, but it's not fun to breathe. While the engine itself was a GREAT idea, society's USE of it has been not-so-great.
Explosives: Gee, how responsible CAN you be with these things? Safe demolitions inside cities, and that sort of thing, those are good ideas. Killing people, the most obvious use of explosives, is not a good idea. Nobel figured this out just a little too late, but made amends. Society's use of explosives has been irresponsible, to say the least.
The point? Every single reader of/. is a member of society. Whether they use new inventions or not, every/.er has a responsibility to at least recognize that every device they use has a lot of power- your computer can run a business or crash the NASDAQ. Instead of gushing over how cool a new explosive is, take just one minute and think about what the application of this is likely going to be.
Maybe you could get into the habit of thinking about that- drive the car downtown, or take the transit? Sure, you obviously won't make any difference on your own, but does that mean you're less responsible for adding to the problem? I'm just saying that we all have a greast deal of power, and that we should realize that, and act appropriately with it. if you don't believe me, think about what would happen if you and all the technologies you wanted were dropped into medieval England. "This... is my BOOM-stick!".
To conclude ("Finally!" "Hey, shut up!"), I want to restate my point. Every single human today has real power, tremendous power in some cases. Wake up, look at what you can do (travel across the globe in less than a week, breathe underwater, watch the entire planet at once from above), and DO something with that. Don't stop the development of the bombs- stop the development of the wars that let us use them. One person has the power to cause a war (cough cough-Helen of Troy, Hitler-cough cough). One person has the power to stop it (no examples- history books don't tell us about wars that DIDN'T happen, but I prefer that kind).
Ah, well. That's my rant. Hopefully, one mildly (okay, it's a stretch) on-topic post, or at least a post/rant inspired by the topic, will be useful. Fifteen pages of trolls- look! Another use of power! (cough cough-moderate-use of power-cough)
...a poor, student Canadian who can barely afford the neccesities of life (tuition, rent, food, transit pass, cable modem), I LOVE this. I can't afford my net access AND TV, so of course I get net. As near as I can guess, the Canadian government WON'T try to barge into this, and may actually support iCrave if they start getting hammered by legal problems.
The Canadian gov't, you see, has recently begun efforts to make Canada more high-tech, and iCrave is a very firm response to these efforts. Since our legal system has so much power, and since most of our judges favour the current government and its stances, there's a good chance that, even if iCrave does get sued, it'll survive.
Hopefully, this will start a trend, or rather reverse the current one; Canada's been bleeding technology companies for a few years now, and the ones that remain are looking at nicer tax regimes (i.e. Nortel, interviewed in National Post as saying that Canadian taxes are driving them out).
I would wager that iCrave, if they play their cards right, will survive and thrive. I hope so, mainly for my sake. I've been missing my Air Farce and This Hour for far too long now, and I don't want to have to give them up again.
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Specifically, there are at least two or three directors (Miyazaki and Anno for sure) who break the molds and use anime to tell deep stories- and in my opinion, those 'bests' of anime far outshine the 'bests' of NA cartoons. They don't dumb down their shows for kids, so all ages are able to enjoy them (Totoro by Miyazaki is a kid's film that I highly recommend to anyone). Their non-kids shows are very philosophical (Evangelion, of course, but also Wings of Honneamise- Anno has an obsession with God/Christianity), and bear watching.
What I'm trying to say is that, while your plot/character argument has some validity, since there are some REALLY bad anime out there, you're making a generalization that's too broad. I would say that anime generally gears itself toward teen audiences, but unlike NA cartoons, they don't depend (as much) on sex, explosions, etc.
Plus, of course, the quality of animation in the TV anime series blows NA cartoons out of the water. Compare Ranma or Tenchi to any non-Japanese produced animated show airing on NA TV, and you'll find that the quality of the anime is generally much higher. In fact, many times the TV series are of better quality than some feature-length animations by the major houses (Disney's Aladdin 2 comes to mind, though that's a straw man). Then, if you go up the scale, to the OVAs (or OAVs, Original Video Animations/Animated Videos), halfway between TV and movie, the animation quality makes a spectacular jump. Animation quality-wise, OVAs beat out every NA movie animation I can think of except for those particularily well-done ones like Iron Giant. The final step, the movies, are gems that we have not seen the like of in NA. Walt Disney produced equivilant quality for his era, but the Japanese animation studios (Ghibli especially) surpass even that. The Card Captor Sakura movie, Ghost in the Shell, Akira, these films are unmatched for quality of animation.
Well, anyway, your claim isn't unfounded, but I think you may not have seen a lot of anime, since it is extremely wide-ranging in styles, plots, and to a lesser degree characters.
To re-illustrate my point: you would think it sucky to die by nuke, right? If you weren't blasted to ash instantly, your body would rot away as the radiation poisoned you, etc. I mean, it's not a pretty way for ANYONE to go. I personally think that the world would be a lot less tense if we didn't have nukes to worry about- PLEASE don't start on how America needed to stomp Japan into the ground, that's not the point. I don't like the idea of nuclear war, so i'm using that as my comparison. WHY do we need MORE weapons in the world? If we don't need more weapons, then WHY are we researching them? For fun?
We need to start doing this:
1) think.
2) act.
as opposed to the other way around. (the Nobel thing, for instance- "Hey! I created dynamite! Oh, wait a minute, I'm now responsible for indirectly causing a lot of deaths. Oops.")
Now, hold off on the commie-accusation flames here, folks, until I'm done. The Bomb ended the war early. yay. in the end, less people total died. yay. I like that part. The non-yay part comes in here: the Bomb still killed people. Yeah, I know, it was war, blah blah. The Bomb still killed people. Sure, it lead to a decisive victory, the help of the Americans in rebuilding Japan, and a better quality of life fifty years later... but it STILL KILLED PEOPLE.
My point is not a morality lesson, so I'm not going to get into why I'm obsessive about the Bomb killing people, except: go watch some videos of Hiroshima, see if you can still say anything good about it. There, done.
NOW we come to my main point. It seems to my that many people involved in scientific research have a great deal of power. They create new technologies that increase our quality of life, and they create technologies like the Bomb. What frightens me is that, these days, we all seem to congratulate the scientists for EVERY discovery. Remember Spider-Man? "With great power comes great responsibility"? We seem to be developing a great many things these days without pausing to think about what they might be used for. I'm not saying we should halt scientific progress- God forbid. I am saying that instead of cheering the development of a new explosive, we should consider the ramifications of such a thing.
Internal combustion engine: great thing. fabulous. we can drive now, we have SUVs, who doesn't love their cars? The USE of vehicles inside cities contributes a great deal to th pollutants there. Irresponsible use of the engine on a large scale leads to traffic jams, and a poor quality of air. sure, the air may not be killing anyone, but it's not fun to breathe. While the engine itself was a GREAT idea, society's USE of it has been not-so-great.
Explosives: Gee, how responsible CAN you be with these things? Safe demolitions inside cities, and that sort of thing, those are good ideas. Killing people, the most obvious use of explosives, is not a good idea. Nobel figured this out just a little too late, but made amends. Society's use of explosives has been irresponsible, to say the least.
The point? Every single reader of /. is a member of society. Whether they use new inventions or not, every /.er has a responsibility to at least recognize that every device they use has a lot of power- your computer can run a business or crash the NASDAQ. Instead of gushing over how cool a new explosive is, take just one minute and think about what the application of this is likely going to be.
Maybe you could get into the habit of thinking about that- drive the car downtown, or take the transit? Sure, you obviously won't make any difference on your own, but does that mean you're less responsible for adding to the problem? I'm just saying that we all have a greast deal of power, and that we should realize that, and act appropriately with it. if you don't believe me, think about what would happen if you and all the technologies you wanted were dropped into medieval England. "This... is my BOOM-stick!".
To conclude ("Finally!" "Hey, shut up!"), I want to restate my point. Every single human today has real power, tremendous power in some cases. Wake up, look at what you can do (travel across the globe in less than a week, breathe underwater, watch the entire planet at once from above), and DO something with that. Don't stop the development of the bombs- stop the development of the wars that let us use them. One person has the power to cause a war (cough cough-Helen of Troy, Hitler-cough cough). One person has the power to stop it (no examples- history books don't tell us about wars that DIDN'T happen, but I prefer that kind).
Ah, well. That's my rant. Hopefully, one mildly (okay, it's a stretch) on-topic post, or at least a post/rant inspired by the topic, will be useful. Fifteen pages of trolls- look! Another use of power! (cough cough-moderate-use of power-cough)
The Canadian gov't, you see, has recently begun efforts to make Canada more high-tech, and iCrave is a very firm response to these efforts. Since our legal system has so much power, and since most of our judges favour the current government and its stances, there's a good chance that, even if iCrave does get sued, it'll survive.
Hopefully, this will start a trend, or rather reverse the current one; Canada's been bleeding technology companies for a few years now, and the ones that remain are looking at nicer tax regimes (i.e. Nortel, interviewed in National Post as saying that Canadian taxes are driving them out).
I would wager that iCrave, if they play their cards right, will survive and thrive. I hope so, mainly for my sake. I've been missing my Air Farce and This Hour for far too long now, and I don't want to have to give them up again.