Forum - View topicANNCast - Hope, For All Mankind
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Zeguna
 Posts: 66 |
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Has anyone else had problems with the direct download? All I get is an error message.
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Brakus
Posts: 130 Location: Virginia |
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I'm getting the same error too. I tried using iTunes as well, and it won't download the podcast. |
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Saffire
 Posts: 1255 Location: Iowa, USA |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I can't seem to replicate this problem - the downloads are all working fine for me. I went to another computer to make sure I didn't have it all cookied, and they're all working fine. |
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Charred Knight
 Posts: 3085 |
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Well Zac didn't say it was a progressive nation by western standards, he simply said it was a fairly progressive nation. He was comparing it to countries like those in Asia and the Middle East. |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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I think that you give The Nostalgia Critic less credit than he's earned. He does incorporate analysis into many of his reviews. It isn't generally highly sophisticated, but it's usually good, intuitive interpretation. I also think that he can be pretty funny. I don't really think of his 'reviews' as meant to inform opinion the way that I think Hope Chapman's are, but rather as cathartic entertainment/ I also wasn't really referring to the merit of the reviews themselves, unless one includes the responses to reviews in their quality, but to how people respond to them. I think that one of the reasons that people can be so aggressively unpleasant online is that humans evolved for direct, personal interaction where the involved parties could see one another, hear their voices and have access to information other than the words said. The fast moving, predominantly written communication of the internet removes most of that supplemental information and in a way dehumanizes participants in a conversation; this joins with the perception of limited social consequence for being a jerk can make people likelier to be vicious to one another. So my guess was that be restoring some of that supplemental information through a video review, the dehumanization and perhaps even the apparent lack of consequences would be mitigated. Evidently, this is not correct. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, being able to hear has done nothing to mitigate awfulness in other contexts. Nevertheless, I still feel like the internet sometimes turns people into sociopaths on speed.
I usually disregard scores except as very crude classification devices. I especially disregard the illusory precision provided by very precise scores because I just can't believe that hair's breadth distinctions between something like A- and B+ or, worst of all, 79% and 80% really tell me something about whatever has been reviewed. That's why I liked the binary thumbs up versus thumbs down system or the ternary Shelf Life system. They provide enough for me to use for basic filtering without distracting extraneous information. I only pay attention to JesuOtaku's scores because the clips can be amusing; the score itself isn't useful on its own.
I'm not quite sure what you mean. If you're referring to political structure, I think that Canada's is more amenable to change. Canada has a parliamentary system with relatively few veto points and two of its ostensible veto players are mostly inoperative. (Unless lately the Senate has been getting uppity or the Queen apt to refuse royal assent) The United States has a presidential system with numerous veto points. Both are federal states, but Canada seems more inclined to make national legislation on social issues. I can't imagine something like the Civil Marriage Act passing constitutional muster with an amendment because the police power has be long been firmly in the hands of the states. Curiously, this allows the United States to be more progressive than it might otherwise be if such policy were nationalized. 'States Rights' has become a dog whistle for racism because the Southern states used it to rationalize their racist policies, but people forget that it allowed other states to ban slavery for in the early republic that would have been obliged to require it under a unitary system (Pennsylvania began gradual abolition in 1780!) and now its allowing the gradual legalization of homosexual marriage even though a national law would probably fail.
It usually makes the best sense to compare a nation to its peer group. To compare the United States to a country like Mali (Just consider the reaction to what seem to a Westerner like very modest advancements for women in the failed amendments to the Malian Family Code) or Uzbekistan isn't very useful because neither are as wealthy or developed, they come from very different cultural traditions and have much younger, weaker traditions of republican government. Japan is a little idiosyncratic because in terms of wealth and development, it's at the level of western nations, but it has a different cultural tradition and its governing tradition is different, although arguably analogous to that of Germany (The Imperial Constitution was even modeled upon the Prussian Constitution). I think that the United States is a pretty progressive nation in a lot of ways, but it's complicated to judge because of the extensive variation in a large, diverse nation. I don't recall what prompted Zac to say anything about the how progressive the United States might be and I'm not inclined to search through a two hour discussion to find it, but I don't think that he's wrong, especially not in the anecdotal, crudely hyperbolic way that Change46 claimed. European nations can be conservative in ways that American's overlook or don't consider. The United States is more progressive than some European countries with regards to gender roles, by this gender empowerment measure it does better all around than France, Swizterland and Italy and is better is some regards than nations that outrank it overall. (I've read suggestions that part of the economic weakness of the southern European states is the very low workforce participation of their women) I wonder how the individual states or just some regions would perform or be judged if separated from the whole. The South and, to a lesser extent, the West are far more regressive than the northeast, northwest or California. (I don't really know about the Midwest) Japan does conspicuously poorly, being lower ranked than much of Eastern Europe, some South or Central American states, some Asian nations and even Tanzania. Japan can actually be a very socially regressive nation; I think that this owes very much to the emphasis on harmony in its culture. While a strong system of social rules and shame do well to regulate behavior, hence Japan's very low crime rate, it also retards social change because accomplishing such change requires going against those strong cultural norms. The long lifespans and traditional reverence for the elderly probably exacerbate this by exaggerating the durability and importance of regressive cultural norms. Last edited by Surrender Artist on Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:17 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Charred Knight
Posts: 3085 |
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Nostalgia Critic is one of the best video reviewers out there, and one of the few I am able to still watch. With Critic it's clearly an act (a lot of video reviewers just come off as miserable people in real life), his reviews are not just endless bashing whether it makes sense to bash things or not, and as you said his actually able to analyze things in the review. |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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By the way, I don't think a harem-style story could work in an american live-action story, because the overall culture of America is very sketchy around anything that could lead to polygamy, not to mention that houses are big enough and common enough to not have the whole "everyone lives in a tiny house with the MC" schick.
Plus, the girls would be viewed as lazy free-loaders. And the mc himself would be viewed as gay becuase he hung out around nothing but chicks. To be honest, the harem genre is extremely strange--it basically doesn't EXIST outside of Japan. I'd love to know what factors could have lead to it becoming popular in Japan. |
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ArsenicSteel
 Posts: 2370 |
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You do know the word harem isn't Japanese in origin, which means at least one other culture has the concept. Also that the idea of many women falling for one man is common in Western media like pimps, gigolos, Hugh Hefner and all reality-love shows like The Bachelor.
Really you need to get your head out of the sand. |
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Chagen46
Posts: 4377 |
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The original real-life harems were far different from anime harems. They were more like your own personal prostitutes, from what I know.
And those modern western "harems" have one major difference: the male lead in them is some badass who women simply can't resist, either for his amazing money or accomplishments or whatever. Anime harems have weak, "normal" male leads who don't really deserve the cadre of women they get. Also, pimps and the like are generally viewed as at least amoral and tend to be villians. Hell, the stereotypical rich villian with women always surrounding him is a perfect example of this. |
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superdry
 Posts: 1309 |
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And? Something is wrong with that? I believe this is usually done so the viewer can either identify with the male lead easier or sort of put himself in the shoes of the male lead. It's escapism via entertainment. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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No argument there.
This tortured state of mind pertains to the film's moral dilemma we face through its protagonist. It's the same torture that consumes soldiers, police, and anyone else who is faced with deciding whether or not life is worth fighting for. If it is insisted that this much makes BR eligible for the TP label, then doesn't that open every film with tragedy to being TP? I'd like to be open minded and everything, but that seems like a very convuluted and rather misleading way of describing psychological trauma (as opposed to say, horror, dystopia, or plain old war). In the context of film criticism it is a misnomer to call say, Angel Cop, a comedy when in fact it is a b-grade action sci-fi show (just like it would be misleading to say BR is a movie for sadists; it has sadistic antagonists, like Dirty Harry and Robocop, but their mere presence doesn't indicate sadistic filmmaking). So why not just apply the golden rule here and work with language that is transparent?
BR can only be told when social bonds break down and people are forced to fight. I get that you don't like it, but to pretend that the violence is somehow tacked on or unnecessary contradicts what the film is about. It's an integral component that uses excitement, dread, terror, and black humour among other things to underscore this theme of war and the struggle between youths against each other and adults in Japanese society. But hey, when you aren't the audience it can be difficult to appreciate something. I thought I was going to die the first time I sat through Citizen Kane. That's not a mark against it.
I'm just for good criticism here; I'd like to be able to communicate with people about what I like and what is critically sound. Wouldn't you be frustrated if people called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs midget porn when the genuine article is in fact tremendously different?
One thing that comes to mind is the "not withstanding" clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I tend to agree with Trudeau that the potential for abuse is there; AFAIK this type of clause is unique to Canada and the American equivalent isn't so hampered. Another thing is the prorogation of Parliament. I think it's great that so many individuals have come together in the last few decades to make the country more progressive, but the foundations are alarmingly shaky at some junctures where the US's seem to be less so. In any event, I said I wasn't sure. Unless there's a really succinct, comprehensive answer to what is surely a large and dense topic, I think you've served the nation admirably. Last edited by dewlwieldthedarpachief on Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:01 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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Chagen46
Posts: 4377 |
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I'm sorry, but I question the mental integrity of someone who actively imagines themselves in the place of a fictional character. I've never liked harems that much for this reason. |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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My personal life sucks so i do it you gotta problem take it up with me. I actually used to like harems myself but most are just bland eroge adapts now which I don't want anything to do anymore. I would rather play the games and get the endings i want then sit through a painful 12 ep adapt. However older series like familiar of zero or to love ru I will defend no matter what because they are my escapism for my crappy life. |
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Brakus
Posts: 130 Location: Virginia |
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I tried direct downloading (right click/save as) on Firefox and got the error "The download cannot be saved because an unknown error occurred. Please try again." I tried from IE and got "anncast111_mp3 couldn't be downloaded." And it still won't automatically download the latest podcast in iTunes. |
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