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Hey, Answerman! [2006-11-03]

Your theory seems to be based entirely on anecdotal evidence. I know a lot of people living in Japan and I asked them to read over my answer and they largely agreed. That's also anecdotal. You might be right, but I'm pretty sure I'm right, too.

Also I don't know what's going on here but "Zac" is me, and I am Answerman.

One also has to remember the no eastern cultural nation ever historically sailed to some other nation on the other side of their world and forcibly taken many of the indigenous people from those nations, chain them inside stuffy disease ridden ships to their home land and then sell the survivors into forced labour like nothing more than mules and donkeys.

Look, if you want to confuse and muddle the issue by offering up a whole bunch of anecdotal evidence, fine. Saying "well what about these shows!" means nothing. It doesn't somehow negate the fact that there's plenty of xenophobia present in Japanese media and in Japanese culture.

Nobody is making blanket statements about ALL Japanese people. My friends there are mostly foreigners who were welcomed with open arms in their jobs there. But all of them did experience discrimination at one point during their travels, and all of it spoke to the xenophobic tendency I'm talking about.

But I'm speaking from a knowledge of Japanese history and the fact that you're one of the only people I've ever heard claim that somehow the Japanese are not racially ignorant on some level. Saying "well they have problems but..." is a dismissal. It's a different culture there, and they do have a completely different attitude toward race, one that looks like cultural insensitivity from the outside. That you went to Japan and didn't personally experience it nor did your friends does not negate the fact that I and the other people who agree with me on this issue know what we're talking about.

If you think I'm wrong, fine, but I'm not going to sit here and pick apart whatever tiny little cultural artifacts you can dig up that might point in the other direction just because you apparently want to disprove what I've said.

Yeah and Berserk is gonna get a 2nd season

are still falling in the same ending she pulls on all her series "And we will keep moving on in life and see what happens"

If a little of history on her works can help you understand why you felt betrayed with the ending on Inu-yasha,

-Mermaid scar/mermaids forest: the immortal mermaid flesh eater couple keep moving on the road to see what's life have for them, they are not boyfriend and girlfriend just yet but they will see.

-Urisei Yatsura: at the very end, ataru does not tell Lum that she loves her, instead he said "I will never forget" and the show ends with the promise that "they will never forget the memories of youth and they will create a thousand more" that you won't see because the show's end is at episode 200 after 6 movies, 7 specials etc etc...

-Ranma 1/2: Ranma is cured and he tells akane that he cares (not love) about her, after a joke wedding that ends up being a mock party, they keep going to school and all the girls in the cast actually are glad that Ranma didn't marry, so everyone ends up going to school next day and literally at the end they say "We will wait for the future to see what happens" after 3 movies, 9 specials and 180 something episodes

And all the rest of her works always end up in some sort of "open ending"

I haven't seen "Maison Ikkoku" just yet, but I doubt it has a definite ending.

now that I know that the ending of Inu yasha is lackluster, there is no reason to me to go on a show so incredibly big that will not take you anywhere.

Fans who think their favorite anime was "butchered" should be forced to sit and listen to Crest of the Stars in English, or to see the "re-versioning" of the early DBZ ep.s under Saban or 4Kids' One Piece. Few other shows come close to such mis-handling.

I thought you meant your words to be a blanket classification in your article. If you didn't, then all the better.

minakichan wrote:

Um, all right... I'm an Asian. Why does American media get away with wholesale racism and other downright disgusting portrayals of minorities? Sure, homogeneity gives Japanese society a different perspective on racial differences. I'd have to argue, however, that it's pretty Western-o-centric to assume that this "downright disgusting portrayal" is definitive, typical, or exceptionally prevalent in Japanese media. There's plenty of similar "racist" portrayal on American television-- stereotypes of Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asians abound.

I was hoping someone would say this. Lot of it is really subtitle, I like to call it "hidden racism". You know how they have these racial minority characters in TV series or movies, but they are always just a little bit dumber or little bit poorer or little bit uglier than their white counterparts. But since the characters are there someone can point to them and say "look, we're not racist, here's a minority character".

But when I do see a Black character in anime/manga, most of the time they're depicted in a positive light as cool people.

Iritscen wrote:

Fans who think their favorite anime was "butchered" should be forced to sit and listen to Crest of the Stars in English, or to see the "re-versioning" of the early DBZ ep.s under Saban or 4Kids' One Piece. Few other shows come close to such mis-handling.

Don't forget Dic's Sailor Moon or Nelvana's Cardcaptors!

How about all the Japanese products that put Westerners in a good/neutral light? What about...

Hellsing

By the way, could you point me out to some pictures of these modern kid's shows with the awful sambo style? I'm curious as to which ones they are.

Mohawk52 wrote:

One also has to remember the no eastern cultural nation ever historically sailed to some other nation on the other side of their world and forcibly taken many of the indigenous people from those nations, chain them inside stuffy disease ridden ships to their home land and then sell the survivors into forced labour like nothing more than mules and donkeys.

Look up "trans-Saharan slavery," African slaves used in the middle and far east. African slaves were even shipped, by sea, as far as India. Over it's history, trans-Saharan slavery is believed to have displaced many more African slaves than European/trans-Atlantic slavery, although it lasted significantly longer.

Organized slavery of foreign peoples is most likely to originated in the East (ie: Sumer).

-t