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The Summer 2014 Anime Preview Guide


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dudebro



Joined: 14 Jul 2014
Posts: 42
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 12:50 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
Those Sabagebu previews have been up for days now. If you wanted to launch some kind of attack on those two for having extremely mild negative opinions of the comedy violence in the show, you probably should've done it then.

Doing it this late smacks of "I'm bored, let's find something to attack the writers for".

If I had come here to comment on this article, I would have commented on it as soon as I joined, rather than a few days later. However, the timing of my post is completely irrelevant, unless you're saying it's against the forum rules to register in order to comment on or talk about something specific. You're also assuming that everyone reads all ANN content the moment it comes out.

ChibiKangaroo wrote:
I'm not a big fan of Tokyo Ghoul, but I think you're reaching here. There are blatantly obvious reasons to be put off by the violence in Sabagebu, especially if it is being done in a totally irreverent manner. School shootings have been a major issue of late in the U.S. and the particulars of those events have been highly disturbing. Likewise, there has been other instances of non-stop gun violence in the U.S. that seems to get worse and worse every year.

It sounds a lot like you're saying that if there wasn't any gun violence in the US, none of this would be an issue. Japan actually doesn't have gun violence, so from their point of view none of this actually is an issue. It's not their problem that Americans can't stop gunning each other down.

Targeting Sabagebu seems rather strange considering that it's an animated comedy show with no pretense of realism or seriousness where girls play airsoft and only imagine it as real(ish) combat. The show even goes as far as to repeatedly stress that it's just their imagination. America produces vast amounts of of movies, TV shows and video games depicting gun violence irreverently and far more realistically (though usually with irresponsibly poor gun safety, unlike Japan), but I doubt that would occur to many people protesting Sabagebu. People who scrutinize anime usually have nothing to say about Western entertainment.

By the way, what about other serious topics that are portrayed in an irreverent manner? Haruhi's antics make light of bullying. Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei plays suicide for laughs. Watamote seems to find social anxiety disorder a little too amusing. Nisemonogatari doesn't take incest as seriously as it should. Male characters getting beaten by female characters makes a mockery of assault and domestic violence. And so on.
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Barbobot



Joined: 06 Feb 2007
Posts: 460
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:07 pm Reply with quote
dudebro wrote:

It sounds a lot like you're saying that if there wasn't any gun violence in the US, none of this would be an issue. Japan actually doesn't have gun violence, so from their point of view none of this actually is an issue. It's not their problem that Americans can't stop gunning each other down.


But it doesn't matter how Japan views it, as none of the reveiwers are japanese citizens living in Japan.
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ChibiKangaroo



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
Posts: 2941
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:12 pm Reply with quote
Barbobot wrote:
dudebro wrote:

It sounds a lot like you're saying that if there wasn't any gun violence in the US, none of this would be an issue. Japan actually doesn't have gun violence, so from their point of view none of this actually is an issue. It's not their problem that Americans can't stop gunning each other down.


But it doesn't matter how Japan views it, as none of the reveiwers are japanese citizens living in Japan.


This.

ANN is not a Japanese website. We are reading previews/reviews for the English speaking markets, i.e. America, Australia, Canada, UK, etc... We are going to see commentary based upon interpretations that line up with that. And next time you see an American film that shows a bunch of kids in school having fun blowing each other away with realistic-looking gun violence, and everyone just celebrates it as a cool new form of entertainment, please let us know.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
Posts: 3524
Location: Bellevue, WA
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:24 pm Reply with quote
Dear Japan,

Please make more anime includes using guns in a violent (or in a way that could somehow be construed as violent) manner. I enjoy them.

Thanks,

An American Anime Fan
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Rederoin



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 1427
Location: Europa
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 1:37 pm Reply with quote
Today I learned something new.


Pretend violence = bad
Realistic anime violence = okay.
This is why I come to ANN, to learn all these amazing new things about the world.
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danilo07



Joined: 25 Dec 2011
Posts: 1580
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:06 pm Reply with quote
Hey if you have some irrational emotional reactions to a bunch of Japanese kids screwing around with air soft guns , that's fine with me, just don't try to make review.
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dudebro



Joined: 14 Jul 2014
Posts: 42
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:14 pm Reply with quote
Barbobot wrote:
But it doesn't matter how Japan views it, as none of the reveiwers are japanese citizens living in Japan.

American gun violence is an American problem, and Sabagebu isn't made for the American audience. It's not their fault if you interpret a whimsical game of airsoft as a celebration of school shootings that don't exist in Japan.

What Sabagebu is guilty of, then, is that some of its content can be interpreted by some residents of a certain country as being coincidentally reminiscent of events in said country, and that they find this reminiscence uncomfortable. It's such an utterly subjective, far-fetched complaint that it isn't even worth bringing up, or at least shouldn't be regarded as a valid complaint.

By the way, if someone complains that they don't like Zetsubou-sensei making light of suicide because a family member of theirs committed suicide, can I tell them that it doesn't matter because none of my family members have committed suicide?

ChibiKangaroo wrote:
And next time you see an American film that shows a bunch of kids in school having fun blowing each other away with realistic-looking gun violence, and everyone just celebrates it as a cool new form of entertainment, please let us know.

American kids play Call of Duty and other shooters all the time, which "glorify" guns, war and the military.
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Plasmaeclipse



Joined: 11 Apr 2014
Posts: 153
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:20 pm Reply with quote
I love how all these comments still completely miss the fact that the writers who had problems with Sanagebu had problems with actual gun violence. Different things set off different people it's not a matter of whether it's kiddie pretend violence or gorey realistic violence it's a problem of how they read it and the feeling that the series is glorifying gun violence, something they are clearly not comfortable with.

Edit: also target audience doesn't really matter. The previewers are an american audience who are interpreting it from an american point of view. Going "It's not made for you why do you even care" just begs the question of why review anything at all. I can't believe people are actually complaining about perspective. Newsflash there are people out there, anime fans included, who ARE uncomfortable with things like Sanagebu and maybe just maybe they appreciate someone being able to vocalize that discomfort on a site like ANN where it can reach a wider audience and grant some perspective.
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dudebro



Joined: 14 Jul 2014
Posts: 42
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:34 pm Reply with quote
Plasmaeclipse wrote:
Edit: also target audience doesn't really matter. The previewers are an american audience who are interpreting it from an american point of view. Going "It's not made for you why do you even care" just begs the question of why review anything at all. I can't believe people are actually complaining about perspective. Newsflash there are people out there, anime fans included, who ARE uncomfortable with things like Sanagebu and maybe just maybe they appreciate someone being able to vocalize that discomfort on a site like ANN where it can reach a wider audience and grant some perspective.

The interpretation is frivolous, as per the reasons stated in my previous post.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:35 pm Reply with quote
Plasmaeclipse wrote:
No I think the issue is more that these kind of shows come off as glorifying these kinds of war games violence. I'm pretty sure Hope has mentioned in a video she did on C-3 bu that she has either dealt with, or knew people who have had to deal with, gun violence. For someone like her (and anyone else who feels squeamish about gun violence) The mere idea of trying to glorify guns and make them cool in such a setting can be very uncomfortable..


Like you said, that's true for squeamish people. But just because someone is squeamish about something doesn't mean that everything that they have a reaction to is wrong or bad. In fact, the fact that they are squeamish means it logically follows that they overreact to even harmless stimuli. Basically, if mere pictures of guns makes you blanch, or an anime about airsoft gets you up in arms about school shootings in America, then that's not the fault of the pictures or the anime.

Plasmaeclipse wrote:
Frankly the way your playing off the issue sounds insensitive to people who have had to deal with gun violence and are sensitive to the issue.


It's really no different than the whole New Orleans issue that cropped up previously. It's one thing to be sensitive about an issue, and people have lots of good reasons for being sensitive about certain things. Heck, it's crushing to lose a home to a flood or a loved one to a gunshot. However it's quite another thing to then blame the stimuli for your overreaction to it.

Defending an innocent anime series from unfair criticism is not insensitive.

Plasmaeclipse wrote:
There are some people who just don't think guns are funny or cool.


Funny, because many of those same people had no problem with extreme gun violence just a few years ago. What changed? Columbine and Virginia Tech were before that, so maybe . . . hmm . . . Sandy Hook? Was that the catalyst? But then that's no different to Dunblane, which also had an adult killing a large number of young children. Different country (though still Anglophone) and two decades ago, but no less shocking and reprehensible.

My point is, despite decades of massacres and gun violence, even in the mid and late 2000s it was fine to like guns and extreme (but fictional) gun violence. Just look at how many positive reviews for anime with exceptionally graphic gun violence there are on this very site. But recently it has become an accepted thing to hate on any type of gun in any role/capacity, even when it is harmless. Society progressing forward and no longer tolerating the glorification of weapons of death? Or a bunch of people who have been scared into hysteria?

Plasmaeclipse wrote:
I love how all these comments still completely miss the fact that the writers who had problems with Sanagebu had problems with actual gun violence.


Hey, guess what? I have a problem with actual gun violence too. It's horrible, and I support strict gun control. But that doesn't mean I criticise an anime series for having airsoft of all things.

You make it sound like those who like fictional gun violence also support actual gun violence.

Plasmaeclipse wrote:
Different things set off different people it's not a matter of whether it's kiddie pretend violence or gorey realistic violence it's a problem of how they read it and the feeling that the series is glorifying gun violence, something they are clearly not comfortable with.


Just because someone has a reaction to something doesn't mean that their reaction is right or correct. My boss is racist towards Indians (as in, from the subcontinent), and he knows it's wrong but he can't help it. That doesn't make his knee-jerk racism okay.

That's an extreme example, so I'll tell you another one.

I don't like that Sailor Moon firedancing video because I don't like crossplay. That doesn't mean my distaste for crossplay is okay, and I even admitted as such in the thread. The video isn't bad because of my distaste for it; the problem lies with me, not the crossplayer.
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Plasmaeclipse



Joined: 11 Apr 2014
Posts: 153
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:02 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Funny, because many of those same people had no problem with extreme gun violence just a few years ago. What changed? Columbine and Virginia Tech were before that, so maybe . . . hmm . . . Sandy Hook? Was that the catalyst? But then that's no different to Dunblane, which also had an adult killing a large number of young children. Different country (though still Anglophone) and two decades ago, but no less shocking and reprehensible.

My point is, despite decades of massacres and gun violence, even in the mid and late 2000s it was fine to like guns and extreme (but fictional) gun violence. Just look at how many positive reviews for anime with exceptionally graphic gun violence there are on this very site. But recently it has become an accepted thing to hate on any type of gun in any role/capacity, even when it is harmless. Society progressing forward and no longer tolerating the glorification of weapons of death? Or a bunch of people who have been scared into hysteria?


As I stated I know that for Hope, at least, she has stated she's seen people get hurt from gun enthusiasm. It isn't any kind of hysteria from things like school shootings or massacres it's a personal issue that she has. For someone like her who has experienced gun violence on a person level even something like airsoft can set her off. There are people out there who are like Hope who have experienced this on a personal level it's not funny to them.

Quote:
You make it sound like those who like fictional gun violence also support actual gun violence.


No literally all I'm saying and all I've been trying to say is it's a personal problem that people have. My problem isn't the discussion of gun violence or the depiction of it in media, my problem is people keep insisting that the view that the previewers have presented are objectively wrong in some way.

Quote:
Just because someone has a reaction to something doesn't mean that their reaction is right or correct. My boss is racist towards Indians (as in, from the subcontinent), and he knows it's wrong but he can't help it. That doesn't make his knee-jerk racism okay.


Racism as an issue does not work as a comparison to this. Racism can have all manner of causes and is a deep long running issue that reaches much further than issues with gun violence. Trying to use racism as a comparison point works about as well as me saying I hate shrimp and have a knee-jerk reaction to food that has shrimp in it. I can try to trace the roots of someone's racism back through all kinds of things from stereotypes to cultural norms and still not get a satisfying answer. However for (at least one of) the previewers I have found a rather clear reason that they have gone on record as stating before.

Quote:
The video isn't bad because of my distaste for it; the problem lies with me, not the crossplayer.


And I'm pretty sure that's the point I was trying to make. It's a personal problem, they vocalized the personal problem. People are commenting out the ass trying to say the problem they had with it was moot or wrong in some way. But their problem isn't moot or wrong. They offered a perspective from a place where they disagree with the content of the show. There will inevitably be people who both agree and disagree with the perspective but that's not the point, people are saying that perspective should not be offered in the first place. If there were anything I was going to say was objectively wrong to say about critique (and trust me I HATE saying things are just plain wrong) it would be that someone should not share their perspective just because it's tainted by personal experience.
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ChibiKangaroo



Joined: 01 Feb 2010
Posts: 2941
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:30 pm Reply with quote
I'm just gonna refer back to what Zac said and question why it is that people feel so heavily invested in arguing that "You can't feel a certain way about a certain anime! You can't have such and such reaction to this content in an anime show! How dare you! You are not allowed!!"

I mean, it's one thing if the reaction is totally unrelated to the show, like someone saying they don't like a show because they hate vampires, but the show has no vampires in it and is in fact about hamsters.

However, this whole outrage thing over "How DARE you have X reaction to such and such violence... HOW DARE you!" is just totally pointless. If the show creates no such reaction from you, that's perfectly fine and I'm sure we are all glad to see you put forth that perspective. I think it's great to have all kinds of perspectives, that's what the forum is for. But when it becomes "HOW DARE this person think this way!" and, as Zac noted before in the previous battle over destruction stuff, people begin to ridicule those who have a certain reaction, then you have to ask yourself what exactly are people trying to prove? That they feel their reactions to things are superior to other people's reactions? That you feel you should have the power to stop others from reacting in a certain way? This seems like a completely pointless exercise to me.

If you didn't have the negative reaction, great. Other reviewers had other reactions too. We have diversity of opinion Smile
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Plasmaeclipse



Joined: 11 Apr 2014
Posts: 153
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:32 pm Reply with quote
ChibiKangaroo wrote:
I'm just gonna refer back to what Zac said and question why it is that people feel so heavily invested in arguing that "You can't feel a certain way about a certain anime! You can't have such and such reaction to this content in an anime show! How dare you! You are not allowed!!"

I mean, it's one thing if the reaction is totally unrelated to the show, like someone saying they don't like a show because they hate vampires, but the show has no vampires in it and is in fact about hamsters.

However, this whole outrage thing over "How DARE you have X reaction to such and such violence... HOW DARE you!" is just totally pointless. If the show creates no such reaction from you, that's perfectly fine and I'm sure we are all glad to see you put forth that perspective. I think it's great to have all kinds of perspectives, that's what the forum is for. But when it becomes "HOW DARE this person think this way!" and, as Zac noted before in the previous battle over destruction stuff, people begin to ridicule those who have a certain reaction, then you have to ask yourself what exactly are people trying to prove? That they feel their reactions to things are superior to other people's reactions? That you feel you should have the power to stop others from reacting in a certain way? This seems like a completely pointless exercise to me.

If you didn't have the negative reaction, great. Other reviewers had other reactions too. We have diversity of opinion Smile


This this right here. Can we just leave it at this and move on
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:35 pm Reply with quote
EDIT: No more gun discussion.

Last edited by Zac on Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Galap
Moderator


Joined: 07 Apr 2012
Posts: 2354
PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:37 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, people can and will have whatever reactions they want, however (and this is a completely general statmement and not directed toward any specific individual, rather everyone):

I think that people have a responsibility to always be trying to determine whether their reactions to things are reasonable and rational, and I think that if people find that their reactions are unreasonable and irrational, they have a responsibility to try to change them. I recognize that this entire process isn't always easy and effective, but I think that people are being negligent if they aren't at least thinking about this and putting in a good effort. Sadly, I think this kind of negligence is very common, which is why I'm posting about it.
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