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Hey, Answerman! [2009-10-23]


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Kyogissun



Joined: 17 Aug 2007
Posts: 676
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:44 am Reply with quote
Meh column this week, just seems like boring questions...

As for the next week Answerfans, I'd say that the animation has to either A: be so god awful I can't ignore it or B: have a predecessor/successor that just so totally botches the quality of the predecessor/successor that you compare them and realize there was no excuse for it.

Specifically? Toei animation and it's god awful handlings of the Key adaptations. Both the Air AND Clannad movies SUCKED big time. They both made sacrifices to the story that affected the cannonicity of it and left them as somewhat incomplete packages, with the Air movie going so far as to completely change up the 'fate' of one character, as well as the background of others.

And with Clannad... Ugh... Okay, I shouldn't ramble and it basically comes down to this:

Toei Animation does hack-rush job movies which most likely have a mildly better budget, whereas Kyoto Animation manages to surpass them repeatedly.

Key, I BEG you, do NOT let them get involved with Little Busters! or Rewrite in any way.

...And that's all I have to say. Figured my commentary isn't Answerfan quality, so I just put it here. It's kinda fan biased but... I dunno, it's just like KyoAni worked their asses off on their versions and Toei just seemed to want to bleed money out of the series.
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MorwenLaicoriel



Joined: 26 Feb 2006
Posts: 1617
Location: Colorado
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 3:42 am Reply with quote
I have a confession. I actually wore cosplay in public.

But I have an excuse! I had to do a project in Social Psychology where I had to break a social norm in public for several hours and record people's reactions. Crossing the line was sort of the point.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 3:52 am Reply with quote
Bokurano showed a relationship between a student and a teacher that went very bad, and Great Teacher Onizuka alluded to another (which was a major plot point). But yeah, Anime has way too many, and way too many such romances that are all perfect. Wish-fulfilment is one thing, but it should be balanced out with realism once in a while. And no, I don;t mean a long while either.

As to this week's question, it is easy; RahXephon's increase in animation quality towards the end only enhanced the show. I didn't notice it the first time through, but on my re-watch it was very noticeable. And very much appreciated.
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giascle



Joined: 09 Sep 2008
Posts: 157
Location: Denver
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 7:17 am Reply with quote
Everything Luffy1545 said is every reason I hate anime fans. Especially #3:

Quote:
You believe that any form of animation or entertainment that does not come from Japan is automatically stupid, inferior, or childish.


I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to destroy the entire Internet from someone making a post like this. There's being a fan, and then there's being retarded.
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SalarymanJoe



Joined: 03 Feb 2005
Posts: 468
Location: Atlanta, GA, USA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:07 am Reply with quote
Huh, only three questions this week...

The Article wrote:
Are actual student-teacher relationships condoned more often in Japan, or is this just a weird, really popular storytelling technique?


I'm not going to claim any real, deeper insight than Brian; however, I will go out on a limb and say that the societal standing of teachers in Japan is a little different than the US, so there is a difference in the closeness between students and teachers. While I think a romantic relationship between students and teachers would realistically played out much more like the one portrayed in Marmalade Boy than other series, like the aforementioned Please Teacher, there is a difference in what could be considered excessive contact in and out of class.

Purely anecdotal, I know but still poignant I believe; I spent a week with a friend of mine who is an English teacher in Japan for vacation this past summer and we obviously talked about it. He said that it's not exactly uncommon for students to pop by teacher's' homes or for students to chat and talk with you if they see you at the store. While teachers are expected to still be role models for their students in society, it's almost as if Japan expects their teachers to also have fairly normal lives. As opposed to a conversation I had with another friend of mine, a teacher here in the US. Rules about things like how students cannot see her drinking. Not getting shitfaced in a club; not slamming tequila shots before at the start of opening bell or on a school trip - but the taboo of alcohol even covers a glass of wine with dinner. As such, if she goes out to eat, she essentially has to go over to the next county/district where it is less likely that she might run into students.

Students hanging around teachers outside of school immediately seems to put the idea out there, in the States, that there is immediately something inappropriate going on. Maybe it's because of the scandalized inappropriate behaviors we've heard about on cable news for the past several years, maybe it's always been that way and was just kept hush-hush. Japan, it seems to go the opposite way where the worst isn't thought of immediately.
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writerpatrick



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 670
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:26 am Reply with quote
There are many stories with a teacher/student relationship in American shows, but they tend to be with a student of legal age, usually at a university/college level. (Often it's about a professor having an affair.) There are also stories with adult teachers and students, like a former student who runs into a teacher some years later. But there tends not to be anything involving high-school or elementary school other than just some crush.

It's a shame that Boo Berry isn't available everywhere anymore. I haven't even seen Frankenberry for a long time. Count Chocula is about the only one available, and even that seems to only appear around Halloween.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:37 am Reply with quote
SalarymanJoe wrote:
Purely anecdotal, I know but still poignant I believe...


Well it does seem like the sort of inane rule that some parts of America would think up. But really, that's just bizarre. I'm glad New Zealand does not put our teachers under that sort of tyranny. I mean, what a person does outside of work is their own business, so long as it does not affect their performance. And I find it hard to believe that a student - of any age - is going to think less of their teacher if they see them having wine at a restaurant or a beer at a sports game.

SalarymanJoe wrote:
Students hanging around teachers outside of school immediately seems to put the idea out there, in the States, that there is immediately something inappropriate going on. Maybe it's because of the scandalized inappropriate behaviors we've heard about on cable news for the past several years, maybe it's always been that way and was just kept hush-hush. Japan, it seems to go the opposite way where the worst isn't thought of immediately.


Hmm. In Kimi no Todoke, Sawako volunteers to help her male teacher set up the classroom in preparation for summer school. When her parents asked her where she's going in the summer holidays, all dressed up in her school uniform, and her answer was to "help out" her teacher, the parents to their credit were surprised. But did they stop and grill her? Nope.

Now, to Sawako's credit she wasn't having a relationship with her teacher, nor was she prostituting herself out by going for the schoolgirl look. But many Western parents would have immediately thought that she was lying and gone ballistic. Her parents on the other hand seemed to be more surprised she was going to school in summer than spending a day alone with her opposite-gender teacher.

I suppose with teachers being so highly-regarded over in Japan, they enjoy the benefit of the doubt. That kind of social attitude has its good points and bad points. It means that teachers can be more of a mentor to students, a certain type of councillor or "friend" if you will. It also raises the risk of girls getting molested, but hey, each society to their own.
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Ktimene's Lover



Joined: 23 Apr 2005
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Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert)
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 8:45 am Reply with quote
Certain people love the student-teacher romance because they dig forbidden. I am going on a limb to say it's possible Western depictions of this influenced the Japanese depictions of this. For many people, they accept love in any form.
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Zade



Joined: 03 Mar 2008
Posts: 79
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:05 am Reply with quote
Did anyone else see that Brian made the best of craigslist?

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tus/1351001550.html

Awesome!
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vashfanatic



Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 3489
Location: Back stateside
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:14 am Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
As to this week's question, it is easy; RahXephon's increase in animation quality towards the end only enhanced the show. I didn't notice it the first time through, but on my re-watch it was very noticeable. And very much appreciated.


Except for episode 20, where the animation plummeted so precipitously that the characters barely look like the same characters. I think they went cheap on that episode just so they could really pump out the money for the big finale.

And before another question gets lobbed at Answerman: everything he said about teacher/student relationships can be applied to incest in anime and manga. Incest is no more tolerated in real life in Japan than here. Well, unless you include cousin relationships in incest, in which case yeah, that's acceptable in Japan.

Re: where to go in cosplay... *sigh*

I had the unpleasant experience about a month back of attending a Japan cultural festival at a local university. There was a small anime and manga section on the third floor, but the majority of the festival was devoted to music, food, bonsai, ikebana, martial arts, etc. So clearly this was NOT an anime convention, right?

Well, that didn't stop a bunch of people from showing up in cosplay, including a guy who had to be forty wearing fuzzy ears and slippers (*shudder*). But what really made me feel ashamed for being an anime fan were the girls who brought yaoi paddles. Now, I hate those things at regular anime conventions, but I suppose they have a place there. But at a general cultural festival? It's like showing up in full Klingon make-up to a science fair just because they might be screening a Star Trek movie.

If you want to cosplay at an anime convention, not only is that cool, it can be fun and entertaining. But know the time and the place. I suppose I shouldn't be too hard on these kids, since they looked to be mostly teenagers.

But that forty-year old guy should've known better... (*shudder*)
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Ralifar



Joined: 15 Jul 2009
Posts: 205
Location: League City, TX
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 9:19 am Reply with quote
SalarymanJoe wrote:

it's almost as if Japan expects their teachers to also have fairly normal lives.


This may be location specific in Japan as well. I had a friend that taught English in Hokkaido for close to 5 years. If she did something that could be deemed even slightly inappropriate someone would report it to her school and she'd be in the kocho sensei's office the next morning. The teachers there were supposed to hold themselves to a higher moral standard when in public. This could also have been because she was so noticeable. She was the only foreigner in the entire city.

I also know of a case where a teacher was found out to be sleeping with his middle school student. No legal action was taken. He wasn't even forced to quit being a teacher, but he was forced to transfer school districts.

Several of my friends and I often went over to some of our teachers houses in America. Nobody ever thought anything was wrong with that.
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Peebs



Joined: 07 Dec 2005
Posts: 419
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 10:05 am Reply with quote
Funimation's Adam Sheehan talked about Sgt. Frog's changed script during their first online panel. They did have permission from the creators to localize the dialoge. I haven't watched it to give an aye or nay on its effectiveness but at least Funimation won't get sued for those changes. I think it was a sound decision on their part.
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Jadress



Joined: 08 Oct 2003
Posts: 807
Location: Seattle. It purdy and nerdy!
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:57 am Reply with quote
On the note of inappropriate times to cosplay... I often hang out in the international district in Seattle, where there's a big Japanese grocery store, a great Kinokuniya book store, a video game store, and a bunch of Asian restaurants and stuff. I feel like at least every other time I'm in that area, I see teens walking around in cosplay and it annoys me. At first I was thinking- oh man, is there some small con or event going on that I wasn't aware of? But no, I think these people just decided it was okay to be Naruto ninjas in the grocery store. *sigh*
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Brand



Joined: 30 Jan 2006
Posts: 1028
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:33 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
portrayed as nothing more than a wistful fantasy (Card Captor Sakura, Kodomo no Omocha)


I'm confused by this because in the Card Captor manga Rika (a 4th grader) gets undeniably engaged to the homeroom teacher.

Also when my friend was in Jet he said one of teachers at his school admitted he was going out with one of the students. He also pointed her out from a distance and mention how hot and young she was.
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Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
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Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:17 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Now, I'm a little confused as to why you think ADV or Funimation would be in danger of being sued. By whom? The original Japanese license holders? Hardly. For all of their script doctoring and celebrity name-dropping, neither studio would be able to record one blip of flippant off-color dialog for those shows without the license holder's absolute, strict permission. Many licensors are open to "reversioning" their product if the licensee can make the case that it'll sell better as a result, plain and simple.
Not only that, the producers of Ghost Stories actively encouraged ADV to do whatever they wanted with the dub, if it would make the show sell. So they decided, "Okay, let's give it to Steven [Foster] and let him run with it." And in the end, the Japanese producers liked ADV's version better than the original.
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