Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2007-05-18]
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Calculusman
 Posts: 309 Location: Virginia |
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Is anyone else baffled how this quote can be interpreted as either "shady," "sick," or "immoral"? |
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kittycatgirl2k
Posts: 57 |
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I didn't read anyone elses responses to the rant before I posted this, so it would not colour my own thoughts by seeing their opinions first, but I will go back and reread the whole thread once I am done.
I do the same thing as the ranter. I have a collector/packrat mindset and unfortunately that comes through in everything I like, but most expensively with video games and anime. I have several shelves full of the stuff, and a few boxes with series I dont intend on watching anytime soon. The fact is, most of the series, I LOVE. And will watch again or have already. Anime like Fruits Basket, Chobits, the Slayers series, etc I have seen multiple times. And occasionally I get the itch to see something again. There is no problem with owning these. They get rewatched once every year or so and look nice on the shelf. Then theres the impulse buys. Stuff like Excel Saga box, or Somedays Dreamers. Things I have noo interest in but were cheap (Excel) or have already watched, dont really want to watch again but might in the future and have it just in case (Somedays). And of course blind cheap buys too.... so it adds up. But youo know, dont sweat it. Sure its alot of money invested in something that is going to sit there more often than not BUT in my opinion I would rather have physical things that I can see again and again if I wish than blowing tons of money eating out at fancy restaurants, bar hopping etc. So instead of nights out on the town. I buy anime. Its safer and it looks like I've DONE something with my money instead of being broke and having nothing too show for it. |
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Berserkfury819
 Posts: 229 Location: Detroit Mi. Spider-Man is dead. R.I.P. |
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Considering child porn is illegal, I have no idea why lolicon is even getting licensed. And while I don't think anime will ever get banned altogether, something like this could cause a very negative backlash. Look at the Don Imus case. Since he has been fired, radio stations are starting a crack down on what is allowed. Radio shock jocks JV and Elvis just had their show The Dog House cancelled because of a crass and racist crank phone call made to a Chinese resturant. Also, several high profile rappers have come out recently and said that the n-word, b-word, and h-word spoiler[ho] should be banned on the air waves. If anime fans aren't careful, something like this may very well happen to us.
On the flake. I have come to the conclusion that if you go up against Zac, you will get owned, so don't try. 2nd, Zac, how about a picture of a bunny or a hamster? Hamsters are awesome! 
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Calculusman
Posts: 309 Location: Virginia |
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As to the actual legality of lolicon. There are two issues. First off, it's still debatable over whether one can ban fake child porn - i.e. porn that is made to look like child porn (by using a young-looking actor or via a drawing or cgi) but really isn't. Part of that argument is about what one is actually trying to prevent - people wanting to look at something that resembles child porn, or the children who are used to make child porn. If the answer is the latter, then child porn that isn't really child porn would, presumably, still be legal. If it's the former, one starts getting out of I think the clear area of law where one is trying to prevent someone from taking advantage of someone else who can't provide consent to going into an area where one is trying to stop a behavior simply because one thinks it is morally wrong, even if it is ultimately not harmful. There is a certain logic to the argument that, while the idea of someone beating off to a CG 10 year old is incredibly creepy, and that many people would be well within their rights to refuse to support such a thing, whether it's money or web space or whatever, in the ultimate end of things, it's still just someone beating off to a computer generated picture and one would have to ask where the ultimate harm is being done. And I realize there is an argument that people who enjoy "fake" child porn will have the propensity to seek out real child porn (or even real children), but people also make that argument for many things - that violent video games cause violence or that sex on TV causes teenagers to be more sexually active. I'm not sure if a link between any of those things has ever really been definitively shown, though. The other issue is the exception for "artistic purposes," though there is obviously a limit to that exception. As for what could be done with anime - I'm not really sure what can be done with anime. The thing about rap lyrics or whatever being banned on air could be done because it's the public airwaves (presuming it's traditional radio). There really isn't any comparison to anime since they're released straight to DVD, and when they are on TV, it's usually cable, which isn't under the jurisdiction of the FCC. If they were going to go after DVD releases of something, they'd go after actual porn long before they'd go after anime. |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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As a headbanger who lived thru the horrors of the PMRC insanity, I say you don't know what you're talking about. On one hand, I tell myself all this stuff IS rated, so if a 12 yr old is reading "Older Teen" stuff & mommy freaks, maybe the American licensee is covered, but there was that incident in Florida where mommy freaked & got something pulled from a library & the one in San Berdo where again, a parent freaked over content & a politician jumped on the bandwagon. I couldn't understand how a parent could buy a Kiss album for a 12 yr old. No one really had access to WASP's "Animal" & few knew of it before the PMRC paraded it around The song is funny & sad as a pretty accurate portrait of a porn fan. But American parents want the easy way out. They re busy. Why should they actually take 5 minutes & see what their kid is into? They'd rather sneak into their room looking for stuff they think the kid shouldn't have. And they are sadly too quick to jump in with incorrect info. Yet we get the "What I like is ok, but what I hate is going to cause the decline & fall of anime/manga" Yeah, right. Yaoi is going to end the world. Lovers in the Night & Love Mode are "Mature" whatever that means. My kid got kicked out of Brownies because I took her to the Matrix when she was 8 & the Brownie leader hater everything that film stood for (Gee, I thought it said no one inder 18 admitted WITHOUT a parent or guardian so my taking her covered that). And I don't care about her reading the yaoi because she's mature enough, she can handle it. As for the rant, it was underwhelming compared with last week. I stopped thinking about how much I've spent on anime & manga since my collection reached 1000 volumes of anime & manga (& I now have over 2000 anime dvds & over 2000 manga columes collected since my husband died in 2001) My daughter works at a grocery store & wasa blown away by a guy who came in New Year's Eve & dropped close to $1000 on liquor. At least I have more than empty bottles when I finish a dvd. And I don'r mind a near-meatless existance. I love pasta. At least my addiction doesn't cost me my friends, family & job like so many of my drug addicted clients. And they can't even see how addicted they are. "I don't have a probllem with drugs!" Yeah. You're carrying containers of urine in your car/stored in your house to try to beat a drug test & that's absolutely normal. The idea of just NOT doing drugs for a few days is so much harder |
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ArielTsuki
Posts: 178 |
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Lolicon =/= CP, well in the eyes of the American law unless it's drawn super-realistic as of now. The only time you would get in trouble of owning lolicon manga is when you're already registered as a sexual predator, which forbids them from having ANY sexually graphic material whatsoever. And I have to agree with crilix, Zac was pretty unprofessional when he voiced his dislike of lolicon manga. While I myself don't like the whole lolishota genre, I would simply say it's not for me. And people need to stop being so alarmist. I've seen Kodomo no Jikan and, outside of some dialog, it's much tamer than Negima. So if we're worried about the parents and stuff rallying, it's already too late. Plus the only way the opposition will win if we LET them. It's the parent's responsiblity to make sure to know what their children are consuming, not the government's. It's not that hard. If a mother gets upset that her 13-year old child got a hand on Kodomo no Jikan, it's HER fault of not checking out the material. I can't tell you the amount of times I've seen parents buy Battle Royale or similar title for their 10-year kids. Plus, this is a country that has Lolita in their bookstores and that is more explicit than Kodomo no Jikan. So let over it already, people. Do what I do, ignore it and move on. @Tsubasa: I wouldn't say Western fan influence is close to nil. I mean, if it wasn't for the popularity in the West, we wouldn't have a second season of Big O or Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust movie. Even recent titles like Blood+ came about because of the popularity of the OAV in the West. So the Western fans have some influence, but I doubt it will help Tsubasa though. The anime among fans I know, even Tsubasa fans, is widely panned. Bee-train REALLY blotched it up. The fact that it doesn't have a third season despite in the middle of things, tell it didn't do too well in Japan either. I would suggest to those fans to stop wasting their time and read the manga if they didn't because the TRC manga is much, much better. @Rant: I don't feel the Rant is much of a rant than an introspective piece. We buy anime or manga simply because of supporting the industry. I own about 300 volumes of manga (I'm selling about 30 of them because I lost total interest in the series) and I don't regret a single cent because I was pretty smart on my usage of money. Collecting things is a very human trait. For example, my aunt loves to collect limited editions of Barbie dolls and computer stuff, my mother loves to buy namebrand pocketbooks (and I found out yesterday that her Gucci bag was $1300!!!), my little sister used to collect candlewax. I, beside manga, collect fashion magazines. It is like sort of a badge of honor. And to tell the truth, I don't go through all of them all the time, but I do reread some volumes of certain manga here and there. But I do give away manga that I'm very sure I will not read again. But I think the Ranter might have his/her finanical priorities mixed up. I think it's all right to collecting certain things, but you have to be finanically responsible as well. For example, my goal is not to spend more than 30 dollars a week on manga. Sometimes I stay on or under the mark, and sometimes I go over. Also, never, ever buy them full price. A little digging thru the internets and secondhand bookstores goes a long way. Or using a Border's coupon. But it should be an afterthought. Paying your bills, paying back people and other essentials are much more important. If it prevents you of buying manga or anime one week, you have to suck it up and wait. |
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Iritscen
 Posts: 793 |
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I had a hard time understanding the ranter's problem. She mentions three anime series that she own in whole or in part, and a few manga, then says:
How could she be spending hundreds of dollars on one shelf of anime? Sure, maybe $200 counts as hundreds, but she makes it sound like it could go toward paying for all these different things. Unless she's buying platinum DVDs in gold cases, there's no way that one shelf costs enough to think twice about. I mean, most young people who are employed have plenty of disposable income.... |
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bonbonsrus
 Posts: 1537 Location: Michigan, USA |
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I loved the banner myself. I have as yet to see what it was from though...
The pic of the scary cat made my cat look good. My oldest cat (I have 3) has allergies and rips her (his, actually) fur out in chucks all over her back. Over time, it has stopped growing back and her whole back has such sparse fur you can see her skin. The vet said the medicines for her allergies could be worse for her than the allergies itself so I did have her looked at before you all say I don't take care of her. Anyway, compared to that thing, she looks good. That didn't even look like a cat...it looked more like some weird hy-breed experiment. Like Cloe had said, Junkers was actually a good movie, I was surprised how much I liked it, and the cover did keep me away for awhile. I think I may have teared up at the end actually... Like Mylene already said as well, the rant wasn't really a rant so much as a journal entry. I agree with what was said as well, I make sure I don't buy stuff I won't watch multiple times, that isn't worth it to me. If I like it enough to have it, I will watch more than once or twice. Crilix, who said Zac didn't have respect in the hardcore anime community I think is dead wrong. Who are you to speak for the rest of us? I think by the definitions provided, I fall into the hardcore or "otaku" community, and I don't think you speak for me, or many others here actually. I don't find the journalism immoral or sick. Perhaps you are upset an opinion was expressed other than your own? Maybe you would be better off expressing that, rather than attacking someone else's opinion...and speaking for people who never gave their consent for you to do so. I don't recall signing a class-action suit against anyone. |
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Brand
 Posts: 1028 |
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Personally I thought the kiwi bird and the gazelle were two of the more cute animals posted. Next it needs to be baby turtles!!!
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Momoka Nishizawa from Keroro Gunso. |
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Kouji
 Posts: 978 |
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aorta
Posts: 24 |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Aside from being more "sexual" (I guess) is Nymphet really any worse than Crayon Shin-chan or South Park? I mean, it's basically the same type of thing and Shin-chan is on Cartoon Network again. I have no plans to buy or even read Nymphet, but like others I saw a few preview pages the last time this title was discussed and cries of "OMFG kiddie porn" seem a bit alarmist and unjustified.
Also, anyone thinking this will bring the downfall of anime/manga fans seems overly alarmist too. I realize "it only takes one" but seriously, how many people do you think are gonna buy Nymphet? I really don't expect anyone who doesn't know what it is (or at least have an idea) to pick it up. With all the manga one can buy now, most people go with "what they know", and considering that Seven Seas currently isn't even a player on par with TP and Viz, what 12 yr old kid is just gonna pick up ANY of their titles "on a whim"? If Chii's incredibly suggestive speech about her magic "button" that can only be touched by "the person just for her" in the likely more popular, more widely available and entirely unshrikwrapped Chobits didn't cause a problem, I really don't see how Nymphet is gonna be "worse" unless it DOES actually include ACTUAL kiddie porn (as opposed to implications and innuendo). |
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kolibri
 Posts: 712 Location: Vancouver |
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Zac, Zac, Zac... you were bored after last week's discussion so you had to throw a loli question in there somewhere
No matter what anyone thinks about loli, I have to call some bullshit people are throwing out. Nymphette can't be bad because something else is worse? 12-year old girl and her flashing panties, sexualizing a child is ok? Look, this material is made to titillate, it's not a piece of literary excellence meant to prove a point 
It makes me so upset I need to think of cats for a while.
Yep, it's a Sphynx - my sister has two and they are interesting creatures. They look really weird on photos, but when you meet them they are incredibly cat-like - gracious, elegant and regal. Hairless cat is a natural mutation on it's own, and the actual breed was created by breeding these and Cornish Rex cats (who have another hair mutation gene), also I think they are sometimes bred with haired cats to prevent too much inbreeding. But since it's recessive gene sometimes hair does grow on the cats like this little on on the photo. In fact if you want to be pedantic, the cats are not completely hairless anyway - they often have like a peach fuzz soft of hair all over their body. Awww... I feel better now. |
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Omega13
 Posts: 78 |
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Not true at all. If we were to stick only to DVDs, it's quite easy to put a lot of money on a single shelf. IIRC, a typical DVD case is 9/16" in depth (width of the spine, as it would be generally displayed on a shelf). If you were to get 20 $10 DVDs ($200 total, and at a very good price, especially if you're buying newer DVDs), that would only take up 11 1/4" of space (much less if converted to thinpaks). So, in DVDs only, a reasonably sized shelf of say, 2 feet in length, would hold over $400 worth of product, assuming you got everything at the very low price of $10 each (>$800 for a more likely price of $20 each). DVDs do have a rather high price/volume ratio. |
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