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The good news is that with the success of Junjou Romantica it is clear that BL series can make money if the creators respect their audience and actually put time and money into the project.

PBsallad wrote:

Haven't read the Shelf Life yet, sorry Erin, but I looked at the Shelf Obsessed pictures. As a fan of City of Heroes/Villains I'm glad to see some one has it on their shelfs!

John Casey, have you tried Going Rogue yet?

Actually, I stopped playing City a long long time ago. Couldn't afford to really play any more high-profile MMOs.

Zac wrote:

Shichimi wrote:

Have to say that I've never heard of the Catholic = cannibal stereotype before, the only one I'm familiar with is the super-offensive spoiler[Catholic priest = child molester] thing.

Yeah, that's new to me too (to the point where I think it may be crazy ranting and not actually "a thing").

It's called 'blood libel', and it's seriously wrong. Roman Christians were accused of cannibalism, as were Jewish people in the Middle Ages. Both of those groups were persecuted on the basis of these kind of stereotypes.

tuxedocat wrote:

Re: Yaoi: It's only rape the first time... maybe.

Ok, not being a fan of yaoi or non-con (in any genre), I can't help but wonder what the attraction is (with non-con) or what function the non-con serves in yaoi and why it seems so pervasive. Is it just titillation for the female fans? Does yaoi have a gay male following and if so, what might their thoughts be on yaoi's rapey-ness?

Is it just a (formulaic) plot device in yaoi, kinda like what we see in harems, i.e. a completely boring, milquetoast guy suddenly surrounded (by some weak plot device) by a gaggle of impossibly hot girls who're all hot for him now?

The same scenario has been used in romance novels for years now. Basically a romance writer's trope, "Forceable Seduction" fell out of favor for a while, but still makes its way into a few bodice rippers. Much to many readers dismay. Charlaine Harris (who wrote the books "True Blood" was based on), writes about it here:

http://www.charlaineharris.com/bb/bb97.html

So it is really nothing new. Many readers feel that it is kind of a throwback, to when women couldn't give in to their own desires without repercussions, so being "forceably seduced" provides the perfect excuse. How June Cleaver. Rolling Eyes

The Japanese have twisted this trope to include self-professed "straight" male characters, where the "forceable seduction" gives them the excuse to come out-of-the-closet. Basically you are getting the same result, just tailored to fit the seduction scenario between two males.

As a woman, I agree with Charlaine Harris. Most of the gay men I know don't like it applied to them either. Its a very outmoded way to make something that is "forbidden" more palatable to mainstream (whatever that is). Since most of the people I know are comfortable with their sexuality, the "forceable seduction" scenario always gets an eye-roll.

I'm probably quoting too much for such a short response, but there's a "romance vs rape" discussion going on over in the Manga forum that's covering a lot of this ground. I'm glad to have read that Charlaine Harris piece - one of the things I've enjoyed about her as an author is the lack of "rape fantasies" in her work. As an assaulted woman, I cannot get behind the idea that it's ok to present rape in a romantic light. Fantasy or not, yaoi, yuri, or straight, it should not be there in a romance context.

John Casey wrote:

Uh...I think most people...got their points across here. Is there need for further debate?

Ya'll are making my cat upset. >:/ Jack can be a real evil kitten when he's moody.

Giving whoever-edits-Shelf-Life a little more power might help Jack's moodiness. Was the "Catholic" comment in any way necessary for the review of Casshern Sins? Were some of the armchair-psychologist comments necessary for her earlier review of Gunslinger Girl?

Seems to me that if there's some tangential pot-stirring comments in every 3rd Shelf Life (of the "insult a significant percentage of my readership, even if unintentionally" variety), maybe the onus is on ANN editors to prune them out, rather than on all the readers to shrug and ignore them. Otherwise, I'll just continue to assume "any publicity is good publicity" and that this sort of forum-filling is exactly what y'all want.

It's one thing to read comments like those on someone's unedited personal blog. It's another to have them attached to ANN, which I like to think of as at least a somewhat professional endeavor... even the "personality-driven columns" like this one.

Last edited by CCSYueh on Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:07 pm; edited 1 time in total

Megiddo wrote:

Also, can't say I enjoy the bit of double standard going on with Junjou. You state that Misaki is a college student when you should know full well that he's a high school student (since he's studying for his entrance exams). I wonder what you would think of the show if it were a 28 year old male and an 18 year old female?

My aunt was 11 yrs younger than her husband. I have no idea when they hooked up, but age gaps such as you're discussing aren't all that horrid other than the fact when they retired, hubby died within a couple yrs leaving my aunt a widow at 58, but I was a widow at 40 so whatever (He was only 4 yrs older than I was)

It really depends on the era you're talking about. Now it's seen as very wrong. Half a century ago mom was probably happy to see her daughter move down the treadmill to her adult life with someone who likely was seen as established & stable. We still see mothers locally in certain cultures gladly signing off on their 16-18 yr olds marrying men of various ages because that's ALL a girl is really seen as good for-producing babies & keeping house.
You DO know 16 yr olds can marry as long as the parent signs off on it. And it does happen.
Japan happens to be one of those cultures that seems to have held on to that idea for a bit of time, though their gals have finally started becoming more equal than they have been in the past. This is why I don't get as worked up over rape in yaoi-they're still sort of where we were in the 60's & 70's with women's place in society (or so it seems) so as a society, I'm not sure they understand/accept rape isn't sex when I know lots of males I've spoken with here in SoCal seem to feel the girl gets enjoyment out of sex whether she wanted it or not. While I don't like it, I'm not going to chuck an otherwise good story out the window if it moves from a non-con into a good romance. Anyone who has issues with that just doesn't read the story. Not all yaoi uses that particular ice-breaker.

I mean, there are guys out there who don't see certain types of sex (such as the one involved in the rape in Junjyo) as sex, so how can it be rape in that sort of person's mind? (Yes-Clinton ref) This is why "No means no" works-we can all be on the same page. Groping is wrong in the same way, but Japan still seems to be unclear on that idea also. Shall we all stop reading all the manga where someone gets touched inappropriately?

Dark Elf Warrior wrote:

About the Catholic thing...That's right! Deep down, all us Catholics are evil, power-hungry cannibals that eat flesh like werewolves and drink blood like vampires! Because we want that holy (but) evil power to make us immortal like Christ! To everyone who has this notion of Catholics: Catholicism=Devil Worship. Burn us all at the stake! Twisted Evil

Blank stare from the headbanger who has waded thru lines of religious protesters passing out pamplets informing the concert attendees just how must torment in hell we're going to experience for attending that 2 hrs of loud music.
Hell, We had religious freaks outside Comic-con international this year.
As a hardened recipient of "You're going to hell for liking that!" I find your outrage amusing. I had already become agnostic when a little Born Again greeted me, putting out her hand to shake as she asked if I had accepted Jesus as my personal savior yet .*When I said "No, I'm mormon"(because I knew at that time they were usually told not to argue religion with a mormon, she stepped back, withdrawing her hand so fast, you'd have thought I was satan himself. It was all I could do not to laugh on the spot. And I don't remember the face of the person who did that, but I remember forever the name of her church.

Dark Elf Warrior wrote:

Avoid the religious jokes. No one would like it if someone cracked a muslim/jew/pagan/buddha/atheist/mormon/protestant/anglo-saxon/hindu/etc. joke. They just become stereotypes. Like the evil, devil-worshiping Catholic who wants power and eats flesh and drinks blood.

But so many of my favorite comics are Jewish & they're always making jokes about Jews. I've always thought they have a pretty good attitude about it. I see the more humorless religions as the problem in this world. If you can't laugh, then you're sort of in the scary zone.

So if Ms Finnegan sees Sins & relates to it thru her Catholic childhood, where's the issue? I see lots of negative christian refs all over manga & anime I assume comes from writers who are not originally christian doing a quick 5 minute research & voile! Tactics. Chrono Crusade. Devilman. I loved the bit in Excel Saga where Il Palazzo trashed Christmas.

Ojamajo LimePie wrote:

Zac wrote:

Shichimi wrote:

Have to say that I've never heard of the Catholic = cannibal stereotype before, the only one I'm familiar with is the super-offensive spoiler[Catholic priest = child molester] thing.

Yeah, that's new to me too (to the point where I think it may be crazy ranting and not actually "a thing").

It's called 'blood libel', and it's seriously wrong. Roman Christians were accused of cannibalism, as were Jewish people in the Middle Ages. Both of those groups were persecuted on the basis of these kind of stereotypes.

Yeah, they were persecuted on these misunderstands.

It's all just about how Catholics interpret Communion. See in the Catholic Church, they believe that when the bread and wine of communion is blessed, Christ literally comes into it, and it literally becomes Christ's body and blood.

Because of this ideology, when they would explain how they "eat the body and blood of Christ" other people not familiar with the customs would react with (an expected) "Whoa whoa whoa, you're eating a human? what? O_O" and then label them cannibals.

So her comment is just talking about how serious Catholics take communion. or something.

"I was watching gay porn while my favorite director was dying." That is an awful sentence to read, but a well-phrased, darkly comic one. Cheers.

I'd like to see a Casshern vs. Magnus Robot Fighter matchup. It wouldn't be them fighting, but actually a contest to see how many robots each could chop through in a minute.

Mikeski wrote:

Giving whoever-edits-Shelf-Life a little more power might help Jack's moodiness. Was the "Catholic" comment in any way necessary for the review of Casshern Sins? Were some of the armchair-psychologist comments necessary for her earlier review of Gunslinger Girl?

I'm the guy who does the final edit on Shelf Life (Bamboo actually does the first edit pass and formats the column) and I can do whatever I want to the column before I publish it. That's my prerogative, my job. That's what an editor does.

The issue here is a totally subjective, and it's completely about sensitivity. I read Erin's column twice before it goes up and I generally understand what she's getting at and respect her opinions (even if I don't agree with them like 50 percent of the time; Scott Pilgrim has absolutely nothing in common with Say Anything!!). She tends to reach for a different set of tools than most anime critics I've read; she is unafraid to make direct, often blunt comparisons, which I personally find refreshing, or at least something new and different. Yes, often these comparisons go into potentially uncomfortable places, but if it's crucial to the point she's making and I get what she's saying, I leave it in. It's all about sympathizing with the point the writer is trying to make rather than just getting mad because she mentioned Catholicism and how dare she.

The notion that I'm supposed to edit out anything that has even a tiny seed of potential controversy in it is silly and not a philosophy I subscribe to. At the same time, I read that Catholicism comment and at no point did it occur to me that anyone would take offense at that, given how basic the reference was. If people are so ludicrously sensitive that even mentioning a common ritual of a major global religion like that offends them, then fine, they get to be offended and are welcome to stop reading the column anytime they like. I'm not going to start taking the hedge clippers to Erin's opinions because of people like that.

Quote:

Seems to me that if there's some tangential pot-stirring comments in every 3rd Shelf Life (of the "insult a significant percentage of my readership, even if unintentionally" variety), maybe the onus is on ANN editors to prune them out, rather than on all the readers to shrug and ignore them. Otherwise, I'll just continue to assume "any publicity is good publicity" and that this sort of forum-filling is exactly what y'all want.

Forums traffic is neither here nor there and the small handful of people complaining and throwing figurative stones at Erin in the forums are a headache, not something we want to deal with. Those people are in the minority, however; Shelf Life has a very high readership and 5 guys complaining in the forums about one thing or another is not a good enough or strong enough reason to me to start heavily censoring or rewriting the column.

Quote:

It's one thing to read comments like those on someone's unedited personal blog. It's another to have them attached to ANN, which I like to think of as at least a somewhat professional endeavor... even the "personality-driven columns" like this one.

If the editor of an op/ed page was caught censoring his writers' columns just so he wouldn't have to deal with anyone being even potentially offended, he'd be fired and replaced with someone who has a spine and some fortitude. I take it you don't work in publishing.

Ojamajo LimePie wrote:

It's called 'blood libel', and it's seriously wrong. Roman Christians were accused of cannibalism, as were Jewish people in the Middle Ages. Both of those groups were persecuted on the basis of these kind of stereotypes.

Wow, huh. I had no idea. Thanks for the info; you learn something every day, I guess!

Even if Erin just gave a score for each DVD and wrote nothing else, people would still be "offended" and up-in-arms about the column.

Flame-G102 wrote:

So suddenly- having a drab color pallete in a post apocalyptic world is low budget? I suppose you would prefer to see colorful flowers and blue sunny skies? yes, thats it. the next Post apocalyptic world should look like paradise instead. otherwise, it must be low budget!

GREAT reasoning!

A lot of forum readers have misunderstood how I define "cheap" in the 2D animation world. Then again, a lot of forum readers have never worked on a 2D show for television, so I've composed a very long explanation on my personal blog to help explain my point.

I haven't had time today to read through the remaining three pages of forum responses yet, but I will say I'm picking up on the pattern here. When I rate something "Shelf Worthy" I get very few complaints. Everytime I put a "Perishable" or sometimes even a "Rental Shelf" on a title I get a bunch of forum responses about how I'm wrong.

At worst, the responses focus in on how I'm not doing my job correctly or in a satisfactory way. Technically, my job here is to watch, review, and rate the anime and not lose readers. As long as I've done all four things, I'm doing it right. (At best, forum readers provide their own miniature counterpoint reviews, which I think is a great idea!)

I have found through nearly a year's experience that many forum commentators seem to want me to justify their spending habits. If you liked Casshern Sins and you bought it, do you really need me to pat you on the back? Do you need an anonymous stranger, on the internet, to tell you "Well done!" every week? Rest assured I am happy that you're pleased with your purchase, even if we don't share the same tastes in anime.

I suppose part of the purpose of Shelf Life is saying "Well done!", but there are five different ratings, and I intend to use them all.

I enjoyed Brighter than the Dawning Blue. A lot of the comedic moments, even after the point they were played out, really had me laughing. It's nothing I'd recommend, but was worth checking out. I think that maybe a perishable rating is a bit too extreme. Maybe a rental title? Wink

Rather than Catholicism that reminds me of African Pigmys (small humans) where people try to eat them because their flesh provides "magical powers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War#Pygmies

Honestly, I do love it when a reviewer agrees with my opinion of a show. It gives me a fuzzy feeling.
On the other side though I do not get angry when they disagree. I am always interested to hear another side to things. I am the first person to admit where I have holes in my knowledge so I love to hear what people who do know what they are talking about think, so that I can learn to form more informed opinions, however much they may differ from others.
I think you're doing a great job Erin, keep it up.

I dig reviews that don't agree with me because it's fascinating how one person can say "This is horrible." and the other can say "This is pure gold!"

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