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NEWS: MSNBC Reports on Sex in Otaku Culture


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9hoenix_



Joined: 18 May 2008
Posts: 75
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:08 am Reply with quote
I must say I`m very offended by this.
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jr0904



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 1064
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:50 am Reply with quote
You're not the only one.ME along with ever anime fan are extremely pissed on this. what a joke.
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Seras



Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 14
Location: Ottawa
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:01 am Reply with quote
huh? seems pretty truthful overall.

not sure what part of that article you find offensive or worth getting upset over...?
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ewsizemore



Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 18
Location: Richmond, VA
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:02 am Reply with quote
I know this is meant to be a short web article, but I have to say I found it poorly written and researched. It's filled with generalizations and broad sweeping pronouncements. The author should at give lip service to the fact that he’s addressing a complex social phenomena and point the reader to other resources. I felt like all Alexander did was feed into the existing stereotype as anime and manga being the haven of perverts. Macias should stick to anime and manga, because he makes a terrible amateur psychologist.

I know as a news site you need to link to this, but there should be a caveat given about the shallow understanding this article demonstrates regarding Japanese and American otaku.

Ed Sizemore
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Tofusensei



Joined: 15 Feb 2008
Posts: 365
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:02 am Reply with quote
"“Lolicon” (or Lolicom, a combination of “Lolita” and “comic”) "

"But sexually-suggestive and explicit anime like "Gurren Lagann" and "Legend of the Overfiend,""

It's so full of factual inaccuracies. I emailed them with the mistakes fifteen minutes after it went live yesterday and no changes yet.

-Tofu
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AckIsBack



Joined: 30 Jul 2008
Posts: 49
Location: Omaha
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:14 am Reply with quote
Pffff, what a joke.

I don't seem to remember any super explicit moments with PORN and SMEX and HENTAI, OH EM GEE in Gurren Lagann. Neutral

This article made me laugh, but not it a good way.
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Alien1375



Joined: 20 Apr 2008
Posts: 34
Location: Netherlands
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:32 am Reply with quote
Well, this article is part of a series about the sexculture of America. So the tone of the article is mostly hype and making alot out of nothing, just like those 'documentaries' on the Playboy channel (Sexcetera).
I'm a little bothered about the sugestion in the last paragraph about the kid reading a manga, though (he could be reading porn!!!! Shocked).
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Rolando_jose



Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 219
Location: Ahhhh it's vacation time again!
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 7:32 am Reply with quote
"Otaku is a Japanese word that has evolved from meaning "techno-geek" to describing devoted fans who pore over Japanese animation (anime), manga (graphic books), hentai (erotic comics) and other comics-derived media."


As far as I remember an 'Otaku' is a Fanatic of anything, not just comics,anime, manga or hentai.
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Gilles Poitras



Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Posts: 168
Location: Oakland California
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:10 am Reply with quote
Patrick Macias, who is mis-quoted, in the article has a discussion in his blog:

http://patrickmacias.blogs.com/er/2008/09/shofukucho-lock.html

As for otaku meaning techno-geek that is an ancient error from Wired magazine that refuses to die.
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ewsizemore



Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 18
Location: Richmond, VA
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 8:27 am Reply with quote
Gilles, thanks for the link. My apologies to Macias. The misquotes really does him disservice. It's a shame he can't get the article pulled based on that alone.

Ed Sizemore
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Alucalb



Joined: 19 Feb 2006
Posts: 169
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:12 am Reply with quote
Now I can't buy Gurren Lagann without looking like a perv. Thanks, MSNBC!
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BleuVII



Joined: 19 Sep 2006
Posts: 672
Location: Tokorozawa, Japan
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:16 am Reply with quote
Yeesh. What a stupid article. I hope that guy faces a minor setback in his journalism career.
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Richard J.
It...it's not like I post for you or anything!It...it's not like I post for you or anything!


Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis.
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:42 am Reply with quote
And to think just a few weeks ago when I posted in a thread about how anime is still seen as violent porn, I was accused of being a "Narutard" because that stereotype was gone. Yeah, it's not remotely around any more. No one thinks anime and manga are all porn.

Gurren Lagann is explicit sexually? Maybe one episode had some nudity but good grief they make it sound like it's hardcore tentacle hentai. I didn't have any respect for MSNBC before and this doesn't exactly change my mind.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
Posts: 10497
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:44 am Reply with quote
Quote:
The MSNBC news network has posted an article about sex in otaku culture and how that has affected mainstream culture in America. Brian Alexander, the author of the book America Unzipped: In Search of Sex and Satisfaction, interviewed Lawrence Eng (a researcher who wrote his doctoral thesis on how otaku interact with technology), Patrick Macias (the editor-in-chief of Otaku USA magazine), and Sharon Kinsella (a British sociologist who wrote a book on adult manga).


Insert joke here about how it's ironic that they're asking people with little sexual experience to discuss sex. *drumroll* Laughing

Quote:
Anybody who doubts the rapidly growing influence of Japan's erotic cultural imports in the U.S. only has to spend a little time playing with a Hello Kitty vibrator while reading a fan-created pornographic Pokemon comic


Do they even know the gender of the individual doing that? Rolling Eyes

Quote:
When anime conventions started in the U.S. back in the mid-1990s, the main demographic was mostly Asian college-age male students,


No, Asian college-age students would have been busy assimilating into American culture, while making fun of white guys who got into anime.

Quote:
Within the adult realm of otaku culture, cuteness is fetishized (hence the Hello Kitty sex toys)


Um, no one owns that vibe, because they're turned on by it. They own it, because they think they can sell it for some insane price on E-bay.

Quote:
Women are penetrated by octopi and young women in short school-girl skirts save the world.


Before or after they save the world?

Quote:
But sexually-suggestive and explicit anime like "Gurren Lagann" and "Legend of the Overfiend," is finding an eager audience of adult Americans who are drawn to the post-modern, almost post-human mash-up of playful, blurry morality found in the genre.


Haven't seen Gurren Lagann, but those mecha don't exactly make me hot. Razz But you just know some newbie who reads the article is gonna be disappointed, because they bought a dvd for wank-fodder, because of the article. Wink

Quote:
The appeal may rest in blooming eroticism, some theorize. Or, as British sociologist Sharon Kinsella suggests, the Lolita-complex anime culture appeals because it's rebellious. “Depictions of sexual deviance and uncontained energy projected onto girls in stories in boy’s comics ... contain an antiauthoritarian impulse that gains intense vicarious pleasure from viewing scenes of social chaos, misbehaviour and sensual liberation,” she has written.


They need to be exposed to more wholesome values like those of Larry Clark and that guy who directed Hard Candy. Rolling Eyes

Quote:
That may be the biggest Japanese influence on American sex. In otaku culture, gender is increasingly fluid and interchangeable. Play and fantasy are more important than actually having sex with a real person.


True, that nut in Akihabara really loved playing with his knife...

Quote:
For example, on a Lolicon chat board recently, someone posted a Japanese DVD cover showing real schoolgirls, around 8 years old, dressed in uniforms, showing their panties, smiling, giggling. The community was outraged and urged harsh punishment for the makers of the DVD, arguing that there is a vast and important difference between “2-D” and “3-D.”


They're right. The girls in that cover might have actually consented to be in that picture. Rolling Eyes Also, I call bs on them being 8 years old.

Quote:
Macias agrees and has little doubt that otaku will influence attitudes about sexual expression here. “When you see a kid sitting in Borders reading a manga, he’s not just reading a comic book,” Macias said. “There is something really powerful going on there.”


Yeah, he's becoming literate.
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Takeyo
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Joined: 25 Mar 2008
Posts: 710
PostPosted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 9:52 am Reply with quote
Richard J. wrote:
Gurren Lagann is explicit sexually?


It's the drills. Rolling Eyes
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