Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - The Failings of Industry
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2558 Location: Online Terminal |
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I think it's safe to say that most of us believe that actions should have consequences. I'm also certain that a lot of us believe that forgiveness is never owed to someone who has done wrong. However, what is likely the hardest to find consensus with is that I keep falling down a philosophical rabbit hole that ends with, "Consequences would probably be a lot easier to mete out and endure if we were all given a comprehensive set of guaranteed human rights."
AI is pretty straightforward though. All my homies hate AI. It's another get rich quick scheme like crypto and card scalping, and all it does is damage the planet both literally and metaphorically in order to enable an oligarchic state. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5345 |
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I think where the Manga One thing gets weird to me is the use of pen names. If the company decided that these authors had served sentence and doing things like counseling was what he needed to be given another chance, then stand behind it and say as much. Obviously, the company knew that not everyone would agree with that, and decided to hide it and have it both ways. Since it happened more than once, it comes off less as them deciding that it's risky to work with them but still worth doing, and more that they didn't care what happened and were simply avoiding the topic.
The Seven Seas stuff: I don't buy it that nothing will change. Media Do talked about entering more markets through AI (cheap) translation in the same breath as announcing the purchase. The situation with Right Stuf and Funimation before it once Sony entered the picture tells you what to expect. "Nothing will change" for a year or so, and then the people who don't agree with the new corporate mandates will be pushed out. Your one-stop-shop for every company's anime merch and media no longer exists, only to be replaced by an owner that can't be bothered to stock any of its own stuff, let alone a competitor's. Your licenses that aren't the DBZs of the world get left to fade away in a transition that never worked the way it was claimed. The folks at Seven Seas are extremely hopeful to the point of probably being naive if they think this won't happen to them. In a world where "line must always go up," the costlier ways of doing things will be cut in favor of the cheaper, and if it falls apart, well, the corporate overlords don't feel bad about entirely cutting off whatever they bought. |
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Sinxi and heylog
Posts: 206 |
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@Greed1914
I agree, putting them under a pen name is not a good look or move, I did not mind them bringing those two back, just don't hide them, they should've done what shiushea did with watsuki, if they did that, I dont think the backlash would exist. There was even another case of this happening under a kadokawa branch, they brought him back after he did you know what (not under a pen name) and no one really mentioned the incident again. As for seven seas entertainment, im going to hold my judgement with that one, I've seen 2 situations where a company that is interested in AI buys another company and not really push the limit. One of them being an AI gen company that bought MAL close to a year ago and they haven't done anything AI oriented or anything like that, its just business as usual. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3842 Location: Finland |
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Actually, it was Media Do who bought MyAnimeList back in 2019, and then sold it to the AI company, Gaudiy, last year. |
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tintor2
 Posts: 2689 |
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When it comes to video games, the drug addict Pierre Taki was removed from Judgment even if it meant delaying the game. However, Yakuza Kiwami 3 got away with using an actor responsible for sexual harrassment.
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2457 |
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I think this is the part that kind of galls me the most about all this. By all accounts, the Kiwami 3 guy is an unrepentant, repeat offender who sees nothing wrong with his behavior, and is rewarded for it. The act-age guy underwent counseling (in a country that stigmatizes therapy) and was very upfront about his crimes with everyone he worked with, and was supposedly going to write something based off of his experiences in a web novel under his own name. I think what went wrong here is that Manga ONE a) got involved in the first place and b) gave him a pen name. It paints his actions in a furtive light (and to be fair, he could have disagreed and written under his own name) and takes advantage of the industry to give him a leg up that he purportedly doesn't really deserve any more, given how he's demonstrated a willingness to abuse power dynamics in the past. I hope he continues to work on himself, because he does seem committed to doing better, but I think he's better off going independent, or at least writing under his own name. |
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LR.Skyrabbit
Posts: 28 |
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This line jarred me when I read it, as "the only reason the world doesn't work how We would like it to is that We're actually a vocal* minority which keeps getting outvoted by the rest of the world and Their differing opinions" has kind of been a core-tenet/coping-mechanism of my worldview... *'vocal' in the sense that We're always grouped close together so We're always hearing voices from one of Us Also, first time hearing the phrase "on the right side of history" used on oneself unironically. I kind of thought the idea of the idiom and its variations was "back then X thought Y was okay or not okay, but in present day we can judge Y by its consequences," so hearing someone use it to lift their own cause up- I've only known that to be done in jokes, ones with the implied punchline of "It would soon turn out X was not, in fact, on the right side of history." |
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Nekbone
Posts: 207 |
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Those two situations are not even remotely the same. Pierre was arrested during development of Judgement. Kagawa's incident which was not even a crime as he was never charged or indicted, happened years prior to the game even being in production. You're comparing Robert Downy Jr being fired from Ally McBeal for all his crazy drug, weapon, and alcohol benders in the 90s to when he was cast as Iron Man in 2008 after time had passed.
Unfortunately it's a common dog whistle that gets spoken a lot in the real world by some of the worst people out there to justify their actions. The Darwin Incident has a lovely little jab at the phrase spoken by supports of the series' main villainous groups who are animal rights activists and vegans pushing their ideology right before they spoiler[shoot up a school] to justify their actions. It's definitely a little "yikes" to read it here though |
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Hellsoldier
 Posts: 1148 Location: Porto,Portugal,Europe,Earth,Sol |
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My biggest issue with this line is that it positions being "on the right side of history" as the same thing as "there are more of us than there are of them". This is an issue, because something having majority approval does not make that something moral or correct. During most of Civilization's History, slavery was considered part of the "natural order", for example. But this is besides the point. I'll second the notion that Japanese law and Japanese society treat drug consumption"offences" as more serious than sexual ones. |
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Ruprecht
Posts: 25 |
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This isn't true at all, it's a false stereotype people keep parroting as evident how people keep bringing up one singular example that happened 7 years ago every time. No one who brings up Pierre Taki seems to be aware he's been working in the industry for years now again and people have moved on unlike Shoichi Yamamoto which was such a big deal all those artists pulled their series from Manga One |
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 2031 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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So, the RUROUNI KENSHIN remake anime has been cancelled for the crime committed by its creator? |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 864 |
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Yeah, the hiding it is the real problem. Like, Shogakukan claims they used pen names to prevent the victims from being re-victimized, but like, we all know that's bullshit. They did it because they knew full well that if they didn't use one, it could affect their revenue. If they wanted to be honest from the jump, they could have said... well, what they said later, that he'd done his time (well, his probation), and been to counseling and his psychologist said he'd been rehabilitated, and that all that meant they deemed him okay in their books... well, it'd still cause a shit show, with probably a lot of the same fallout regarding other creators pulling their works, but at least that story could cause a little bit of discussion regarding what constitutes "rehabilitation" and when/if the public should accept criminals ever (not that I want to open that political can of worms here). But they knew it would be a controversy, so rather than face that, they chose to hide it and pray no one found out. What really makes me mad about the whole thing is that they knew all the risks and yet... still hired the guys. Look, maybe they were good writers (I've never read act-age or Daten Sasuken) but are they that good? Somebody at the company must love 'em because damn, it feels like anybody with any sort of business sense would have seen this coming and nipped it in the bud. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 921 |
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I see a lot of people who talk about how anime and manga or video games are "their escape" and how they hate seeing "politics shoved into it."
But this stuff doesn't just come out of nowhere. People work on these cartoons and games. People put effort into it. A lot of hands have to put pen to paper just for one chapter of Schoolgirl Milky Crisis to get published in a weekly magazine. It doesn't happen by accident, it's all a deliberate process carried out by teams of artists, writers, editors, and so on. It shouldn't be so hard to stand by the simple fact that the people who work on this stuff deserve to do so in peace, without having to get chained down by creeps. Shiro Usazaki got lucky, I'm happy for her; however great act-age could've been, her work in Ichi the Witch has blown it clear out of the water. But a lot of people don't get that chance. Because we gotta make room for actual convicted sex criminals. |
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Hellsoldier
Posts: 1148 Location: Porto,Portugal,Europe,Earth,Sol |
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1 - Stereotypes are false by nature, since they are an oversimplification of large groups of people. 2 - It's not a stereotype, it's Japanese Law. Ever since the meth epidemic in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Hiropon Crisis, that afflicted millions of people, Japan has adopted some of the most draconian drug laws on Earth. Because of the mayhem caused by those events, there is a strong taboo and stigma over drug consumption. And you're forgetting the case of Erika Sawajiri. She had to wait 5 years to get work in acting simply for being caught with ecstasy. No such wait for any of the mangaka involved in the latest controversy. Or Ai Takabe, a seiyuu whose career ended because of the possession of small amounts of cocaine. I'm starting to detect a gender bias as well. Tell me again how this is supposed to be some stereotype? |
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Ruprecht
Posts: 25 |
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Watsuki was arrested in 2017 and his manga was then put on hiatus as a result. Unless he committed a new crime I'm unaware since then the anime remake that came out in 2023 is long after that fact and people had moved on.
This is false. 5 years was the same time between act-age's cancellation and Seisou no Shinrishi being published so that sounds about the same as Tatsuya Matsuki's case. Matsuki had to wait 5 years as well. Shoichi Yamamoto's case is certainly an outlier though and either he's friends with the editor or someone high up or something unusual that gave him a chance that most people don't get.
It's a stereotype because you're saying that Japan does not care about sexual crimes. It leans into the "weird pervert" Japan stereotype that get spun by people that harms people of Japanese descent. It's possible to care about both drug and sex crimes and think both are bad and deserve punishment although that also does not mean they have to be life ending depending on one's view of rehabilitation and forgiveness. |
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