Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2007-03-09]
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Kenotic
 Posts: 167 |
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I wanted to chime in with my first post (!) to say that this week's rant was one of the best. Even if anime was as ubiquitous in Japan as the US otaku want it to be, it'd be terribly rude to use someone in that manner. "Japan" does not equal "anime" any more than "United States" equals "McDonalds," which is what people were convinced of when I went overseas.
As for the rest, this column is the perfect example of level-headed anime fandom. I know the weekly dub/sub and Naruto letters would drive me batty after awhile (even if this week's was pretty open-minded and fair). Thanks for cute puppy pics! |
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shadow_Hiei
Posts: 68 |
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*rolls eyes at doomsday scenario*
Even if news reporters do learn of lolicons, news reports =/= doomsday. Animated little girls don't resemble the real thing as much as CG, and only a very small percentage have rape (only shows I can think of are Berserk, and it stopped short, and *spoilers* wasn't even a small child at the time, and Elfen Lied, where it was only implied), so I doubt that it will be classified as child pornography. As long as anime fans continue to buy despite the news reports (and I don't see why they wouldn't... any gamer/fan of offensive television shows like South Park would know how ridiculous those news reports can be), I think that the anime industry will be fine. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Those were my exact thoughts. Except, I love Hockey and am always willing to talk about it...Im also polite, friendly, easygoing, say "eh" alot, and like Beer. yeah, Im a steriotype...but the point is, not everyone is so be sensitive to that. As for the Flake, firstly, some people deserve to be made fun of. More importantly, lets keep in mind that Zac isnt just some random guy, he is an expert on Anime and related stuff. He is given a colemn because of this and because people WANT to hear his oppinions. As for the thing about Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, I completely agree. The only way somebody is gonna find out about it is if theyre already looking into Anime. If thats the case, theyre gonna find enough stuff to paint Anime as Violent/sperverted/childporn/etc. Hell, if they look into it, they probly wont stop at just stuff out in the US anyway so it wont matter. As soon as they come across the term hentai, were srewed...so yeah. It really doesnt even matter what they find cause they can easilly take perfectly innocent stuff and twist it into something bad. Its basically what the media does. Finally, my main point: Thankyou Zac for pointing out some of the good points about Dubs. I hate these Japanophiles who believe Dubs are evil, subs are sooooooooo infinitely superior. I personally prefer Dubs. Now I dont think the actual quality of dubs is superior to subs. It varies by series and generally there isnt a huge difference. The reason though that I prefer Dubs is that im not choosing the English version over the japanese version. You cant do that unless you speak both languages. Im choosing the English version over the Subbed version. There are alot of advantages to watching Anime in your native languages. You lose alot of the tone and context when youre reading the words instead of hearing them. Granted you can still hear them, but without understanding them you are at a definite dissadvantage. Also, reading subtitles distracts from the Animation. This may be less of an issue if youre a strong reader, however it will always be at least a minor distraction and if you can avoid it, why not do so? More importantly though theres the problem of Literal Translation. Translating Anime to English isn’t always as simple as just looking each word up in the dictionary and sticking it in the appropriate place. Unfortunately this is pretty much what a lot of sub fans demand. Of course that's fair enough. If they start editing and making changes you're starting to get into the same problems people have with Dubs. Im not just talking about Honorifics here. When you translate stuff word for word, though youre closest to the original, it doesnt contain any of the context it did in Japanese. It ends up being this dry, unnatural sounding text that feels very contrived and unimaginative. As Zac said, what dubs do isnt just randomly change stuff.
with dialogue that resembles the original more in terms of the overall message and feeling that it gets across. Now in fairness, sometimes they botch dubs or occasionally decide to edit it (to make it more approprite or for a younger age group). Dont let that put you off dubs for good though. This may have been more common a decade or so ago, but with Anime's growing popularity its no longer the case. So basically, give the Dubs a chance. |
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teh*darkness
 Posts: 901 |
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I pretty much agree with what's been said about the flake, and the rant, so just the other two points.
Scanlations> I read scans, but mostly series that haven't been/'most likely won't be' licensed, and a few of the shounen ones that have. But most titles that I read online, I'm buying in english. For instance, after a Death Note volume comes out in the US, I buy, and read, then I have to wait for more... so, if I can't wait, I'll hop online, and read a chapter or three to see what happens next. Yes, I'll have less to read when I get the next volume, but then I can compare some of the translations, if I decide to track down the raws as well, being as I know some japanese. But for the most part, I do buy official releases... I mean dammit, a recent rough estimate says I have over 1000 manga in english, and almost 100 in japanese, so it's not like I'm only reading scans... As for sub/dub- I personally prefer the subtitles, because I use the audio track + the subtitles to help me learn the conversation form of the japanese language. I pick out various words and phrases by listening to raw episodes, or reading imports, then use japanese language tracks with subtitles to help me piece together the sentence structure. Also, I do hold somewhat to the idea that a decent amount of anime dubs (not including movies) are usually at least partially altered from the original japanese specifically because of the translation versus the amount of time to say the lines in english, so sometimes, minor adjustments are required. My biggest complaint with dubs is the voice acting. Specifically, anything from ADV... Bandai has a bunch of great dubs (Wolf's Rain, GitS, WHR, Eureka 7), and Funi has a few (FMA, YYH), but Geneon has some work to do, and ADV just plain fails... how am I supposed to get into a show, when the characters sound the same no matter how many different series I watch!? How is it that every female from Osaka sounds like Kira Vincent-Davis? This doesn't make sense to me... and then there's the miscasting... Vic Mignogna as Dark? He should have been Daisuke... of course, that's just my opinion, but still... On the larger scale, dubs have come very far in the last 10 years, but some companies need to decide to hire decent voice actors to make their releases more credible outside the fan community. |
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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While the guy at the bookstore was probably talking about scanlations, Netcomics sells all their manga for online viewing for about $0.25 a chapter long before it's released in print. I read up through vol 9 (the end) of Boy Princess, for example, when vol 5 was just hitting the bookstores. It's a great and cheap way to read a first volume to see if you like it, and to see that next chapter when a volume ends on a cliffhanger. (and yes, I'm still buying the hardcopies)
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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So did you bring up the violent lolicon anime issue, the dub vs sub issue, and the scanlation/fansub issue all in the column because you want it to 'assplode' and go boom, or what?
You like living dangerously, don't you? Let's see... I have a number of bits I keep saying about those issues. For dub vs sub, I'm for the dub. To me, Japan watched their anime dubbed, so I want the same. If I wanted to read dialouge, I'd go read the manga. That's one reason I'm waiting for the dub on the DVDs for the Deathnote anime. As for scanlations, I admit I download.. a lot. I don't always read everything I do and I constantly need to flush out stuff I can now buy in comic stores. Though I also aim to hunt down obscure and adult stuff, either seinen, hentai, or, yes, even guro. (Berserk alone dances around all those categories.) I will gladly give money to any company crazy enough to publish Benkyo Tamaoki's Tokyo Red Hood. Of course, I also have been buying so many US released manga, most I first saw on scanlation, I need to buy multiple new bookshelves for them. I'm pretty much the manga expert at my local comic store, so I tell the owner what I want and what might be good to get. A good deal of this I get from scanlations I've read and what scanlations people are talking about online. Oh and dear crap, yes! Someone else who realizes YouTube's video quality is terrible. Thank you! I am not alone. |
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ichido reichan
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Actually the rant bought some serious memories about the past:
About foreign students from japan, you need to know how to manage a conversation and try to keep it low profile, if they dont like the stuff, they will sound uninterested or they will smile out of politeness, but not only that, besides the anime, there is more to talk to any foreign person about places you been, how is the weather, ask them if they have been in other places in japan itself and share your culture, throwing anime as a mere subject instead of a full conversation. A few days ago I met in the international club a japanese girl that was born in Hiroshima and we talked for hours about the impact that the bomb had in the city, about museums, places, and it was avery interesting conversation. They also wanna talk about how's Europe, USA, canada and you have the chance to show them great films that they might never seen (I just show in the International club Pan's labirynth, nacho libre, napoleon dynamite and the devil's backbone and they were amazed at the films... is all about sharing |
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bennyb
 Posts: 477 |
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Answerman, your raving cynicism never fails to cheer me up.
 <3
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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I completely agree with the Rant. It's also sorta mean, because it's like saying that all black people rap and play basketball, or all latin-americans are car-thiefs. |
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Jedi General
 Posts: 2485 Location: Tucson, AZ |
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Yet another great column, I really look forward to this on Fridays. Oh, and the Death Note banner pwns.
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Stullz
Posts: 96 |
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time for my 2 cents:
sub/dub- for me its about the quality of the voice actors I love the bubs of many series but hate others and vice versa for sub/original Japanese scanlation- I read scans of 2 series on average Bleach and Negima, and from what I can tell the scans are pretty damn close to the official ones which I buy when they are released. every now and then i'll get a scan of a volume / chapter to examine the art / story of another series before purchasing. (Air gear for example.) also I use scanlations when I can't find a copy of the next volume of a series that is already out ( GTO is like this, my local bookstores don't have volume 2 or 7 and I own 1, 3-6) flake- lol rant- i know what you mean, never having been nor met an exchange student from Japan, the closest I can deal with is a girl in my class who is of Asian Decent (fyi: we have 15 in my class 1 is African-American 1 is Asian , the rest are white (and one italian)) There are bunch of running in jokes about the Asian girl that we all make including her about stereotypes. for example All asians know karate and can kick our butts. Whenever my class mate looks upset or doesn't like something we say something along those lines and it cracks her up. All in good fun. It really is all a matter of common sense but it can be hard to keep that in mind about different cultures. |
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Unholy_Nny
 Posts: 622 |
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The flake of the week is right!
You should give me your job >_> <_< |
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lazuline
 Posts: 66 Location: Park Slope |
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What? "Scanslations" are common and ubiquitous... and likely more widespread than fansubs (If you're naive enough to only consider English Scanslations and the not Korean/Chinese scans that are often the source for the english ones). And I've said it before and I'll say it again... WHERE ARE THE DUST COVERS FOR AMERICAN MANGA???? Authentic manga my ass... Seriously though, I've bought manga in a couple of different countries in Europe and ... and guess what? THEY ALL HAD DUST COVERS.... then again, i'm not their target audience... Kinokuniya banzai! (yotsubato! in Spanish is hillarious...) Last edited by lazuline on Fri Mar 09, 2007 10:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
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bonbonsrus
 Posts: 1537 Location: Michigan, USA |
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The Banner looked great! I admit a partiality to Death Note
I am SO grateful that this column is NOT written using poor punctuation, capitalization and general stupidity. That is what makes it one of my favorite columns to read every week. About scanlations, I admit I don't read them. I prefer a book in my hand...now I just need to utilize the library more and buy less.  That would be a rant (from my husband!)
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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TERRIBLE rant, it seems to be just providing a platform for people to be all "holier than thou" about how they treat people. I am not one of the people mentioned in the rant (haven't run into any exchange students from Japan with any regularity), so I'm not complaining AS one of those people. The problem I have with the rant is that you're basically snapshotting people who often have TERRIBLE "social skills" (look at your average anime con, the older fans are usually intoverted pseudo-hikikomori and the younger ones are kids who push yaoi/yuri on you unrequested and tackle-glomp you without any respect for personal space). Is this to say these people should be "excused", certainly not, but neither should this come as any surprise, heck we should be glad they're not "glomping" the Japanese students upon arrival as prophets from the "motherland".
For many people, there are various reasons to try to talk to the Japanese people about anime, did you ever stop and consider that for some people it might be the ONE thing they think they have in common and thus a way to open dialogue? How many AMERICAN people does the person speak to? If the "otaku" has maybe 2-3 friends and then makes the EFFORT to speak to Japanese arrivals, even if it's about something that person has no interest in, I respect that they're making the EFFORT to speak to them. Heck, if not for anime and manga (ie. 20 years ago) how many people would put out ANY effort to speak to them? Would you rather be greeted with discussion about a topic you have no interest in? Or completely ignored? (ala the Vietnamese people referenced) If you have a genuine interest in making friends, you will make an effort to learn their interests (at least a little about them) and if THEY also have an interest, they will learn something of yours. If that interest is not there, then eventually you'll leave each other alone. It's just like meeting anime/manga pros, for many of them (Japanese & American) it is just a job, they do it for a living but they're not necessarily huge fans. If you're talking to them in a convention panel or marketting function, they'll certainly do what they can to please you "the fan" to get you to buy their stuff. But if you meet them in "off" hours, usually they have no real interest in discussing the topic. They may discuss how the industry works or aspects of things related to their jobs that might also interest you, but they don't really care how this character treated that one in random episode of the show. Anyway, point being, I don't see how it's some crime against humanity to try to find common ground with the exchange students, even if your ATTEMPT happens to be with something they don't like. IF you are doing so only as an effort to use that person to get stuff from overseas or translate the latest chapter of whatever manga you like, then that is wrong, your motivations are wrong. But if you're just trying to make friends and that's all you can think of to talk about, why is that wrong? |
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