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Hey, Answerman! Identity Theft

Speaking as an avowed Angel Cop enthusiast, it's always been my take that the stupendously nationalistic / anti-American / anti-Semitic content of the script were less to do with Ichiro Itano and more to do with his longtime collaborator Shou Aikawa, whose works often tend to include something completely crazy on that level. He's pretty much been given a retroactive pass for this stuff due to having worked on this relatively little-known series called *ahem* Fullmetal Alchemist, but I firmly believe Ichiro Itano's interests lie primarily in motorcycles, jet planes, guns, missile swarms, and bloodshed. This was still not enough to make me watch through all of Blassreiter...yet.

It's interesting that Gunsmith Cats is generally praised while Mad Bull is near-universally panned, since the reason cited was the level of visual accuracy in depicting Chicago even though the characters and events were positively outlandish. Yet the same is true for Mad Bull with regards to its visual depiction of New York City. The fascinating thing about the works of Kazuo Koike is that the artists he collaborates with all have a knack for putting in heavy-duty research from a visual standpoint. Mad Bull looks like 1980s New York, Offered's depiction of the inside hallways of MIT is 100% spot-on, and the worlds of Lone Wolf and Cub/Samurai Executioner/Path of the Assassin look exactly like how you'd expect feudal Japan to. It's the events that unfold which shatter the illusion. The real streets of NYC are not routinely terrorized by Chinese tanks, Count Dracula, wheelchair-bound cyborg Latino drug dealers, or the Predator (thus forcing the NYPD to fight back using the power loader from Aliens). You can't buy canned coffee from a vending machine, and they certainly can't double as grenades no matter what elderly diabetics do to them.

And it's not that Gunsmith Cats isn't just about as insane on the plot and violence/dismemberment metrics. After all, you're not a true Kenichi Sonoda villain unless you lose a limb and then replace it with a firearm. Yet somehow, my love for Gunsmith Cats and Kenichi Sonoda in general has greatly diminished over the years, as the release of the Omnibus editions managed to switch on a light bulb in my head. Suddenly, it became more apparent that while Kenichi Sonoda digs cars, guns, and robots...what he's MAINLY into is naked underage girls. Hmm, maybe THAT'S why Gunsmith Cats gets all the kudos despite being very similar to Mad Bull 34...

Rakkan wrote:

What's it like to be so much of a fan boy that you delude yourself into thinking Mad Bull and GSC are similar in any fashion beyond being gun heavy action series' set in America?

It's pretty awesome, actually. Tell me, what's it like providing no argument to the contrary besides "no it isn't"? Because as Michael Palin so famously said, that isn't an argument. It's just contradiction.

Listen: both are targeted to the same seinen demographic. Both draw their primary influences from American action movies and television shows of the 1970s and 1980s. Both are quite high up there on on the violence and sexuality scale. Both feature very detailed depictions of locations and firearms while simultaneously being incredibly unrealistic. If you've only ever seen the respective anime titles for each, then I can see how you may be skeptical of the comparison, but this is not an arbitrary flight of fancy on my part.

I always thought the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series made Americans look like dicks. I know the CIA has done some shady things in the past, but spoiler[I don't think the USA would fire a nuke at a friendly country like they almost do at the end of 2nd gig. That's just ridiculous.] Also renaming the USA the "American Empire" certainly suggests that we're trying to take over the world.

I don't think that it really matters that it isn't our America. It still is America, and really it isn't an alternate timeline either. It's still Americans being portrayed in a poor light.

I don't think that it really matters that it isn't our America. It still is America, and really it isn't an alternate timeline either. It's still Americans being portrayed in a poor light.

Speaking of negative protrayals of America, how about Blood+? The American government was EVIL. spoiler[They wanted to use the Chiropterans to serve as a controlled artificial enemy to give the people something to rally against and preserve America's image as the defenders of justice and liberty. Two politicians were even based off of Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice.] I was caught between laughing and rolling my eyes several times while I was watching.

How about the Scandinavian Countries?

whenever Rumiko Takahashi craps out a new manga series, well duh, you'll see that one licensed in a heartbeat.

What is it exactly that makes a foreign company decide weather or not to localize a manga?
...there are some series that seem to have been completely overlooked, remaining published only in their native Japanese.

Then again, look at American TV/movies, or the new Doctor Who. Everybody makes their own nation the center of the world.

Americans being portrayed badly in anime? :rolls eyes: Please!
How about Asians, Africans, Blacks, (some) Europeans, Non-Christan, Non-Blue eyed, non-Blonde haired, non-Heterosexual, anti-Democracy, and basically everyone who isn't "American enough" being portrayed in US pop culture right now?