Forum - View topicChicks On Anime - Fan Fiction (Part 2)
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yblees
Posts: 165 Location: New Zealand |
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I always thought it was because the english language fanfic communities started as slash-fic communities back before there was a legitimate outlet for yaoi style stories (which I'm starting to think holds a deep seated instinctive attraction for significant numbers of women ) - and just carried on from there. |
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yblees
Posts: 165 Location: New Zealand |
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Abraham Lincoln is probably not the best example, I knew about Abe as a child of 7 in Malaysia. Try something more obscure like ... Hershey's kisses.. I think everyone in the US would know what they are, but I first encountered them on a flight to the US when they were served up with coffee. Dark chocolate kisses - yummmm. |
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Cait
Posts: 503 |
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I stand by my choice. I still contend that knowing who Abraham Lincoln was is not something that anyone outside of the US should be expected to know and I would never hold it against anyone outside of this country for not knowing who he was. I wouldn't have used a chocolate snack food as an example, mostly considering it is not a person (and therefore not exactly comparable to the discussion). Also, anyone here who is saying, "well I know who Abraham Lincoln is and I live in a 'third world' nation," I have to point out to you that you are on the internet right now, reading this forum. You are therefore perfectly capable of reading and understanding the English language fluently enough to participate in this discussion and probably therefore have a decent enough working knowledge of the basic histories of English-speaking countries, or, at the very least, exposure to American culture (Lincoln being very commonly used in imagery) through other online venues. Furthermore, any country outside of the US that has had exposure, outside of the internet, to American culture (through TV, films, etc.) would also probably have been exposed to enough of it to have learned who Abraham Lincoln was. The implication of my argument was that anyone who does not have any exposure to American culture would probably not know, and would certainly not be expected to know, who one of our presidents was, despite the fact that he had such wide renown within our culture. I find it particularly interesting that although it seems no one is objecting to my argument they seem all too interested in harping on the specific example I used. I think this discussion could better be served outside of such unnecessary nitpicking. |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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At the same time, you have to realize that the Japanese licensors know this, which is why you have all those Gundam Wing photobooks, and the clear files, and pencil boards, and all that stuff. For every series about war and destruction or politics, there are a billion licensed prints of the characters stretched on a bed, or foddling each other's hair. Now, I'm not saying that I don't agree with you, because I do, but I just wanted to point out that bit of pandering. As for fanfiction topics... I don't really understand the need to slash characters together either, but maybe it's because I've never really been a big yaoi fan. I'd rather read a GW fanfic about a military strategy meeting, but I imagine I'm in the vast minority. |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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I disagree, but because of a different reason. The United States is really one of the few educated countries in the world whose citizens don't really know about foreign matters and history. Hell, a big chunk of American-born citizens probably don't even know who the current Secretary of State is. Just because we're not expected to know every historical figure from France in our schooling system doesn't mean that French children don't know historical figures from our past. That's the nature of our citizens, though. I bet almost every French citizen knows who's running for US president, but you couldn't find even 50% of this country who knows who's running their country. That's a departure from the "what is fame?" discussion, so I apologize, but I wanted to throw my thoughts in there. |
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konkonsn
Posts: 172 Location: Illinois |
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Jah, I make things too complicated sometimes. When I slept on it, I had the thought that it was probably more like: yaoi fiction is written, attracts yaoi fans, other fans leave because too much yaoi, more fans come in, etc, etc. Much simpler... I still like my longer answer, tho, for a good mental chewing. |
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Goodpenguin
Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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The US is, for now and over the past few decades, the worlds only true 'Superpower'. The President of the US can be said to make decisions that guide the free world, that's generally not something attributed to Nicholas Sarkozy. The sheer scope and reach of our (the US's) international economy means that many countries are deeply intertwined with our own fiscal fortunes. Having a knowledge of US history and current political landscape is considered smart/functional educational preparedness in many parts of the world. In this sense, you're correct that many countries learn more about cultural/political specifics of the US than we do about them on a 'pound for pound' basis, through general education. The line I bolded, however, seems to imply that the US stands out as some low-lying outlier in terms of general historical education, and I don't believe that case to be accurate. Can the average Japanese kid speak at length about the current administration of Peru? Can the typical Belgium kid lecture about the specifics of post-60's Kenyan politics? Can the average Australian in the street give an accurate run-down on Argentinian politics? Or can people in those places speak to more familiarity with the American scene than an American could vice-versa? As above, isn't that due to the prominence of America on the cultural, economic and political stage rather than a culturally superior love of history? I've also seen (in public education) a relatively deeper knowledge of basic 'regional history' in places like Europe and Asia, but in fairness these are tightly connected geographical areas which share centuries of history and mixed cultural ancestry that don't have parallels in the US. |
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CCSYueh
Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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Viz Edition Bleach 23 pg 37 Orihime's been sitting on the floor whining about her feelings for Ichigo while Matsumoto showers. Matsumoto steps out of course naked & dripping wet putting Orihime just a touche below naked crotch level. Naked Matsumoto hugs Orihime. On page 38, Matsumoto tickles Orihime. Last frame on the page naked Orihime is on all fours straddling Orihime. Pg 39 closeup of both females, then another hug Nooooooo. No one could strip the dialog & put in their own wild imaginings. My late husband would have. Lots of guys would. The Kenpachi/Mayuri shot is something like Vol 34.
You ARE a misogynist believing that. Boo hoo! Stupid pandering to FEMALES has ruined our MANLY stories! Hollywood sure has caught onto the idea appealing to a wider audience sells better=more moolah but god forbid Japan try to make a profit on stories. So Dragonball & Saint Seiya are neo-shonen since they're from that era? Such horrible stories, aren't they? Apocalypse Zero. Bastard. You do know shonen & shojo are only TARGET groups. Guys can read/watch shojo & enjoy it. Gals can read/watch shonen & enjoy it.
I still fail to see your issue over FAN ART, FAN FICTION, etc. So you hate yaoi. Don't read it. God knows I've found my share of hetero stuff out there. You are just lucky wnough to find all the homosexual stuff that obviously drives you wild. I'm 48 & have a large yaoi collection. I DETEST whiney shojo heroines. We get romance without the whiney shojo heroines in yaoi. YEAH!
Maybe because those writers also see that Gundam is just a lame excuse to create a story about racial tension for a country that's largely homogenous (new type vs naturals) & have a bunch of battle scenes using tanks/ships that are shaped roughly humanoid. Gundam politics rarely rises above the drug-addled hippie concepts of the 60's (What if we gave a war & nobody came? Ooooo). There is no substance to Gundam Politics. It's 3rd grade primer version at best.
Can't one say filler is the same? Scriptwriters very possibly destroying the original creator's plotting so that in the worst cases the show can't return to the original plot?
Only to one another's face in casual relationships. There are lots of dudes buying stuff from the various Adult Bookstores in this fair city. That's really a pretty old-fashioned attitude to have. I've heard lots of guys talk about their sex toys.
Yaoi isn't about real guys having sex. Yes, there are gay movies pitched in some of the zines, but overall BL is about fantasy. Impossibly beautiful men having idealized relationships-love conquers all, even "forbidden" relationships. Frankly I have no desire to see real guys bumping flesh. A lot of yaoi isn't all that explicit. Lots of kissing & confessions of love. Love Recipe Vol 2 is a pretty good read on the subject. "Facts" as related in that story (about a BL publisher) is hetero hentai is designed for 2 shots--one in the first 8 pages & another by the end of the installment. BL is about flutter--th-thump or some such sound effect. The story follows a male editor of the zine as he works with their star author in Vol 1 & with a newb in Vol 2-also male & gay so he's writing for himself which IS NOT what the BL audience wants. So maybe the reason one sees so much yaoi fanfics is BL is designed to appeal to an audience seeking fantasy & impossible relationships. Since the subject itself leans that way, the audience is quicker to read a certain subtext into any given story I seem to recall the catch-phrase in Robo Cop for the fake show was "I'll buy that for a dollar!" & my late husband used that phrase far & wide & vulgarly. I also hear guys turn innocent phrases vulgar just by inflection all the time. |
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musouka
Posts: 707 |
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So, let's see, the magazine, as we know it, as been running since 1969. "Neo-shounen"--which you can probably blame on Saint Seiya and its legion of badass pretty boys--started its filthy, manly-man polluting ways back in 1986. So, uh, let's see. I'm going to pretend it's 2009, for clarity's sake. "PURE" shounen: Had a run of seventeen years. "NEO" shounen: Has a run of twenty-three years, still going strong. Yeah, it's about time to stop crying the manly tears into your beers and accept that "neo" shounen has been a Shounen Jump staple for longer than those good ole days you remember, pure fans. Don't worry, you'll still have seinen manga, until the people growing up on neo-shounen get older. :p |
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poonk
Posts: 1490 Location: In the Library with Philip |
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yblees
Posts: 165 Location: New Zealand |
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I'm amazed someone is actually trying that! Good for them and all, but speaking as a woman, some of the gay porn "live stuff" is seriously SCARY!!! (IMHO) Give me 2D bishies any day. @CCSYueh. Er, I definitely see where you're coming from and I agree with you in general, but I feel you're being too harsh in your responses here. I think most guys, young and old do find the attraction of yaoi unusual and confusing - if only because this genre has only very recently become popular enough to be noticed (i.e. it's a New Thing, even if it's not really). I feel the fact that discussing yaoi is becoming more ..."normalised", can only be a good thing, and writing that one thinks something's f*kng pointless bull-crp should be allowed if done sensitively Hopefully, we will eventually all agree to disagree ... What I'm saying is - don't be so rough on those guys, you'll scare them away. And I for one prefer to keep these lines of conversation wide open. |
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor
Posts: 3904 Location: CO |
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You raise a valid point, though I'm sometimes dismayed by the lack of awareness that some of my countrymen have about current foreign affairs. Maybe not everyone should need to commit post-60s Kenyan politics to memory, but we ought to know the leaders of our closest allies. However, I wouldn't be surprised to find that a large number of Americans still think that Tony Blair is the PM of Britain. I don't think a large percentage of Americans know there is anything going on in Venezuela. To give an extreme example that I personally find humorous, the other day, I was telling the other grad student in my lab that Putin recently received a tiger for his birthday. She looked at me quizzically and asked, "Vladimir Putin? Is he a guy in our building?" However, you're right, and it's possible that this scenario is mirrored in other countries as well, which is disheartening. |
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fuuma_monou
Posts: 1817 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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Funny, I thought misogyny involved stuff like female infanticide. You know, outright hatred of the female sex, rather than just sexism against women. And I'm not sure the passage you quoted even qualifies as sexist. Mind my litmus test is "Would Dave Sim say this?"
"Bah! Who needs independent heroines!" All kidding aside, this reminds me of the hypothesis that male yuri fans and female yaoi fans are possibly transgendered to some degree. Lesbian in a man's body, gay man in a woman's body, so to speak. So they're not really appropriating the opposite sex's homosexuality or otherwise perverted. Seems too niche to survey properly, though. |
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Anime World Order
Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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It fascinates me that two people can properly quote me as saying this:
And then respond to me with this, suggesting I said the polar opposite:
I therefore feel no obligation to defend myself for positions I don't actually hold and never actually stated. I said it rather clearly the first time: my distinction between "shonen" and "neo-shonen" is not a quality judgment or a pejorative. I simply use it to denote what I perceive as a movemental difference. The Hong Kong action films produced by Run Run Shaw and the films of Tsui Hark would both be categorized as "kung fu" movies for the times in which they were made, but one would be "Hong Kong new wave" and the other would not be. Merely acknowledging that there are tangible differences between "wuxia," "new wave," and the like is not passing sentence upon anything. It's an observation, just as it's an observation to note that the dramatic rise of yaoi fandom, as manifest in fan art, fan fiction, and such, corresponds directly to the time in which editors of shonen publications started to cater to said demographic. Unless anyone denies the fact that this change did indeed happen, I feel no need to argue the point. Note that since "neo-shonen" is not an official term, you're more than welcome to call it by a different name: someone in Japan recently told me that they attended a lecture in which the shonen distinction I speak of was made by referring to works pre-City Hunter/Saint Seiya as being part of a "kuro" ("black") era, and works after that as part of the current "shiro" ("white") era. In discussions relating to fan fiction and the prevalence of yaoi content as it pertains to the anime realm of things, a frequently asked question is "why is the fan base for yuri barely a fraction of that for yaoi?" Many reasons could potentially exist for this--a lot have already been mentioned--but I think a significant reason is that shojo editors never made any concerted efforts to also draw in male readers the way the shonen editors did for female readers. That is why the male readership of Shojo Beat is something like 4 or 5 percent compared to the 40 or so percent female readership for Shonen Jump. Should such a change be made at some point in the future, I don't think it would be fair to insist that The Rose of Versailles be retroactively classified as josei rather than acknowledge the change being made. |
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musouka
Posts: 707 |
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"Fans" are in plural, so I wasn't just referring to you. I don't think you need to defend the entirety of old shounen fans either; I was just using your post as a springboard for my own thoughts on the matter. As far as you go, personally, I do detect a distinct sense of "fangirls are shallow, with their focus on relationships and sex at the expense of other aspects of the series in their fanfiction". I would tell you that it's probably because, in those series, fangirls have grown to love the characters and want to explore emotional relationships between them in more depth than the series itself allots. If a need for action/adventure/talking heads is being met perfectly fine in the series in question, I'm usually content to let canon play out as it will. For example, my eyes tend to glaze over when political talk comes up in Gundam 00. It's not because I'm stupid, or I dislike politics, or I'm "shallow" and just in it for the Kouga Yun character designs. It's because the show does a piss poor job for nearly the entire first season of making you care about a single person embroiled in the conflict. My interest was only majorly piqued by the inclusion of Tieria's homosexual crush on Lockon. Not because it was homosexual--though the unique, for a Gundam series, aspect helped--but because it was one of the first times a character had forged a genuinely strong connection to another character outside of "we're both shooting at the same thing". I'm not interested enough in Gundam to write fanfiction for it, but another person who is more emotionally invested might want to take that relationship and run with it. Or they might want to give the rest of the team plausible bonds of affection, with an added bonus of watching two attractive people have sex while doing so. This is also why you so rarely see fanfiction about "canon" yaoi. The emotional needs are being met by the series itself, so why write about it? Basically, people like a little (or a lot) romance in their series, and if it's not there, they don't feel much compunction about writing it in. So I'm not sure why it's such a big mystery to people why so much fanfiction focuses on sex/romance.
You also need to keep in mind the stereotype that "it's okay for women to do things that are masculine (because it "elevates them") but it's bad for guys to do things that are feminine (because it "lowers them")". You would have to change that mindset before seeing a mass exodus towards shoujo magazines. On the other hand, you are ignoring the fact that "moe", in both visual novels and in general, tends to have artwork more strongly associated with "shoujo" than "shounen". The initial artwork in Key's Kanon is a lot closer to a series running in Ribbon magazine than any shounen magazine you could pull off the shelf. The magazines themselves might not have any appreciable male readership, but as a subculture, traditional shoujo art and style is very much alive for male otaku.
No, what I am referring to is that the "pure" shounen culture is still alive and well in the pages of seinen magazines. The creator of "Fist of the Northstar" is still writing his spin offs. "Souten Kouro" (which is one of my all time favorite series, btw) was insanely popular and fit very much in line with "pure" shounen's excesses. Even "Bastard" just relocated to the pages of a seinen mag. Kurumada's "Ring ni Kakero 2", despite being on a similar reading level and probably even less violent than the original series, was serialized in a seinen magazine, while the original was in Jump. Rose of Versailles shouldn't be classified as ladies, but if Ikeda made a spin off, what sort of magazine do you think it'd be more likely to show up in? |
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