Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2007-02-16]
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pat_payne
Posts: 179 |
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I just want to take that "luna wishcatcher starbright", smack her around, tell her to drop the "you're a Nazi because you took us to task for being pathetic losers" and then smack her around again. I mean it. I am getting sick of people dropping the word "Nazi" for those whom they disagree with. Do these losers even know what Hitler and the Nazis were actually about?!? What they did?!? How utterly offensive and obscene it must be to those who actually survived that hell?!? How dare they call Zac a "Nazi" merely for telling them that the Emperor has no clothes?
*takes a deep breath and a handful of prozac* Anyway, I did want to mention, in a bit calmer voice, a bit more about this "Otakukin" nonsense. For the most part, they seem harmless (I mean, Patton believed himself to be the reincarnation of a Roman legionary and when he and Bradley passed by an ancient battlefield in Italy, described how he believed he was there), but on the other hand, it is creepy. These are the people for whom fantasy and reality have no border. I play D&D (as I'm sure many on this forum do), but I don't go around with a broadsword and chain mail believing that I'm Ragnar the Smelly, scourge of the Flanaess. If they want to believe that nonsense, fine. The problem is, sooner or later one of these people is gonna get hurt. I don't want to see one of these morons going up to a bruiser and picking a fight because they think that they can perform a Ryuuken or the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu or some such thing and getting themselves creamed or killed. And I REALLY don't want some sort of Bink Pulling "fantasy v. reality" thing coming out of it, where the poor deceased's parents blame it all on anime so they don't have to look at their own parenting in absentia. As for the person who wrote in about voice acting, I think Zac is right with a small proviso -- it's probably not a completely closed system. If you have acting ability, you might do well to get an acting resume going through work in the theater, and try to get your name noticed that way. If you're good enough, and in the right place at the right time, you may get there. Remember Noriko Takaya -- "Hard Work and Guts!!" 
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Eos
 Posts: 168 Location: Jersey |
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You'd be surprised with the stuff on LJ. I had a friend forward me to a community of Disney princess/Tinkerbell fans that were having a rather vicious fight over Ariel (and using very unprincess-like language). Many of them are older than 25 and center their lives around internet communities dedicated to children's cartoons/lit. Scary stuff. It doesn't surprise me at all that otakukin exist (but still disturbs me).
I was thinking more along the lines of the 4chan /b/tards, they are many and can be ruthless. Though that campaign against the NJ neo nazi was pretty funny... |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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I know you go out of your way to find the opposing viewpoint in every topic, frankly at this point I must admit that it would seem that is your sole intention here. At any rate, none of that applies because in this "religion" they are claiming tangible powers which can be demonstrated and proven. They are claiming they have something right here and right now and that's a claim that can be demonstrated as true or false, case closed. If they can't demonstrate it then it's false, that's all there is to it. They either do or do not have it, there is no believing they do because they are not stating a belief, they are making a claim. |
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MadLibrarian
 Posts: 1 Location: Brooklyn |
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I think cliche often gets confused with genre. All anime genres have "rules" that the plot must follow, just like a mystery novel does. What makes genres fun is how well the creator can play with those rules to make something new and interesting. If somebody really wanted to he or she could make a great new harem show. Likewise, you can come up with the most out-there orginal plot ever, but if the main character is a spunky kid out to avenge his brothers death, you might end up guilty of cliche.
Anyway, hey Zax, love the kittens and "each other" is always two words. |
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millstoner
Posts: 1 |
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So todays rant was about the cliche of how reviewers review cliches?
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ZeroRyoko1974
Posts: 258 |
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wow, just wow. After reading todays answerman my head litterly hurts (in a non imaginitive, I am going to take some aspirin kind of way). Words can't put to life how delusional those people are.
  I have to say that 4chan is a step up in intelligence from that crowd. I guess they need to rewrite the hierarchy of geekdom for the class of people who actually believe they are a vampire/anime character/animal/whatever. This reminded me of a clip from Reno911 where they encounter LARP D&D people. Its quite hilarous...
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=216 |
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pat_payne
Posts: 179 |
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Far be it from me to actually stick up for Mr. "I don't mind if (obscenity redacted because I can't bear to repeat it) so that my personal free speech rights are secure", but while you're right on one score, Keonyn, that we can empirically prove that these "Otakukin" can't perform any of those powers, belief doesn't require proof. It is said that proof is at times enimical to faith (I wish I had the quote to hand, but cest' la vie), for if you could completely quantify God (or the gods or what have you) there is no reason to have faith, as you'd know. In short, it is the not knowing that builds faith in a belief. And threy be;lieve they can do it, just as a person who believes he's Superman will jump off a building to demonstrate it. It makes them delusional, and puts them in danger, but doesn't erase the fact that they believe their own claims. Who knows? maybe in their fevered brains, they see those "fox auras". That being said, these people are still NVTS and ought to seek help now. |
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DemonEyesLeo
 Posts: 844 Location: Japan |
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The banner's not loading for me, this is the second week it hasn't.
@the flake and the Otakukin: I weep for humanity. But let's let these "-kin" be and soon it will die out with natural selection. |
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blind_assassin
 Posts: 755 |
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I would say that the DBZ franchise has fairly recently managed to crack that "mediocre" glass ceiling that has plagued anime games since they've been being released. Budokai 3 and Tenkaichi 2 are both well within the real of good or even very good. Mind you that this accomplishment can easily be buried by the level of failed anime games or even by the number of good anime-style-but-not-based games (like Disgaea and many Tales games). But I'd say that this means that anime (and even movie games) are starting to get on the right track. Movie games have gone from being disgraceful filth that isn't fit to come into contact with humans to not worth playing unless you're a fan and anime games are slowly managing to appeal to people who aren't hardcore fans of the show (if in a limited capacity thus far for most titles).
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d.yaro
Posts: 528 |
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Very nice banner... but it loaded just a bit faster than molasses running uphill on a cold winter's night. Must be a heck of a lot of traffic out there because I'm sitting on a DSL connection.
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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I've heard so many different people using the word Nazi for every little thing that it's lost all impact.
Plus, Patton didn't think he was one of the great Roman generals, just a regular soldier. Believing you're the reincarnation of someone that never even existed in this reality in the first place. . . that's a huge leap. First, you have to believe that a fictional world exists somewhere. (If you are to believe all the other people making such claims, then you have to believe that a lot of fictional worlds really exist.) Now, you've got believe you are a fictional character. On top of all that, it seems like all of these people want to believe they were the top level people from those ficitional worlds. On the subject of reviews and overuse of the word cliche: My only thought is that there should be a rule that reviewers are no longer allowed to talk about EVA when reviewing a mecha series that's serious. Every single mecha series review that I have read has some mention of EVA in it somewhere. Either it's "trying to be EVA" or it's "not as good as EVA" and I'm kinda sick of hearing about EVA every time I read a review for a mecha series. |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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WAY too many comments on "-kin" for my tastes.
I came to talk about the rant and I'd like to point out that THAT is why reviews are useless for choosing anime. To explain, I think the absolute BEST way to run a review colum is to do (kinda) like Animerica or some other magazine (maybe PA did it) did. Get several reviewers who each LIKE SOMETHING DIFFERENT and have a "base" overview and then have each reviewer comment. The problem with this is that many sites don't have the staff for a single reviewer, let along 4-5. But the problem with only one reviewer is that that viewer has certain tastes, and even if they're trying to be unbiased, if they didn't like something that is "best of show" for a genre, they CERTAINLY won't like "iteration #8" of that same genre. If you hated Tenchi Muyo (the original OVAs) because even when it was kinda "new" it was "loser guy for some unexplainable reason has 5 girls all over him", then Love Hina sin't gonna do it for you. OTOH, if you LIKED Tenchi, you may appreciate the new character designs or the change of setting or the other subtle changes on the theme. That's the problem with the "cliche" tag, if you agree with the reviewer and hate that particular type, then you'll just nod and agree "yeah, those shows suck". But if you LIKE those shows, but acknowledge that SOME of them are bad, you've gained nothing from this review. Anyone who can just blanket review a show with something like "cliched, its all been done before" should be tossed as a reviewer. These people are the equivalent of "What anime should I watch?" and their immediate answer is (my favorite title), because it is AWESOME. The response a good reviewer should always ask that question is "well, what do YOU like?" at which point you can critically explain good titles to that person based upon their tastes. "Oh/Ah My Goddess" is MY personal favorite anime of all time, but I understand that it is NOT for everyone and I know many people who pretty much hate it. I DON'T like "Cowboy Bebop" (blasphemy, I know) and am not over fond of several of Miyazaki's movies. This is why a GREAT review system would have a reviewer who LIKES a given sect of material as well as reviewers who may not appreciate it. If all (or even most) reviewers agree, then the show is OBVIOUSLY a quality work that no doubt transcends the genre. If only the one reviewer likes it, then fans of the genre might enjoy it, and others can and probably should, take a pass. If all reviewers hate it, then it no doubt sucks and isn't worth watching. But again, that's porbably just an "ideal" in my head that several groups simply don't have the resources to set up. |
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Kouji
 Posts: 978 |
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TestamentSaki
 Posts: 1012 |
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Wow. I knew the Flake would be worth it... And I thought that fangirls were annoying -___-U. Otakukin and rabid fangirls are the epitome of idiocy now... And that kitten pic was cute (but nowhere as cute as the pic I placed last time
 )
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Omega13
 Posts: 78 |
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I know this is mostly my own experience, but regarding anime reviews, I'd really like it if more reviewers focused at least a section (AnimeOnDVD is good about this, having Video and Audio review segments) on technical aspects of the show, mainly video/audio transfer and subtitle spelling/grammar quality (not translation accuracy). In almost all cases, if I am seriously considering buying a DVD, I've already seen all or most of the series and know what I think about it. I couldn't care less what the reviewer thinks of the content of the series itself because I've formed my own opinions by that point, and for my own purchases, those are the only ones that matter. Instead, I'm looking for information on how the DVD was authored, if misspelling/grammatical errors are abundant (since that's how I'm planning on watching the DVD), and the like. Sadly, this kind of information is generally lacking, at least if such issues are considered 'minor'. For example, I searched multiple reviews for mention on whether a brief video pause/hiccup in episode 1 of Bakuretsu Tenshi that I experienced was a general issue, or perhaps a problem with just my copy (which would determine whether I try to exchange my copy or keep it since all copies would have the same issue) and found nothing. For one thing, these are professional companies authoring, subtitling, and releasing these DVDs; no technical issue nowadays (unless it existed in the original master) is 'minor'. That is not to say that I'm going to bitch and moan every time I see a single pixel misplaced or one misspelled word in 26 episodes, but it isn't unreasonable to expect the company's QA department to catch and have these corrected before release and have as flawless a watching experience as humanly possible. Note: this does not include translation accuracy - it is inherently impossible due to the nature and structure of different languages to have a single, authoritative translation from sentence 1 in language A to sentence 1 in language B.
Anyway, more focus on technical points in anime reviews would be a good thing. Last edited by Omega13 on Fri Feb 16, 2007 12:26 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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