Forum - View topicPile of Shame - Yagami-kun's Family Affairs
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Among cinephiles it's such a common phrase that I've been hearing it since the 90s. In my college anime club people routinely would refer to shows they'd always meant to see but never did as being on their 'pile of shame'. After careful consideration we're going to change the column's title so people won't be so bewildered by what it means. I stand by what I said about the title - this is an incredibly common colloquialism - but it comes up nearly every time we publish this and people are obviously confused, so we'll change it. |
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se37
 Posts: 229 Location: Annapolis, Maryland |
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Yeah, I forgot about that too... been playing too many VN where it is adoption type crap.... |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2541 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Shame that it has to change. The saddest thing is that all one has to do is search "Pile of Shame" into Google, and the results are all relating to what you're saying, Zac (outside of a few of Justin's articles appearing right at the top). It's not just a term for cinephiles, either, because gamers definitely understand what a "pile of shame" is, too. In fact, said Google search will result in more gaming "Pile of Shames" than cinematic ones. Anyway, this title in particular does seem like something that would have seemed more taboo back when it came out. Hell, just the fact that people are reacting more like "How many non-hentai animes involve son/mom incest, anyway?" instead of "Ewwwww!!! That's you mom, dude!" kind of shows just how unintrusive something like incest is when it comes to anime. Whether that's a good thing or not is down to the individual, I guess... |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4074 |
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It's an incredibly common colloquialism, among cinephiles, since the nineties? Not ringing any of my bells as stuff I haven't seen is either stuff I'm going to see or stuff I won't see. Calling it a pile of shame would add value to titles I alone wouldn't know what value to ascribe them. Strange... Anime club days, ok, now we're getting somewhere; The stuff that people would shame you into watching. "What, you haven't seen [blank] yet? You are such a poser." Oh, those preInternet days, when people would insult your lack of cred right to the face... As a native English speaker, a pile of shame in a medium that has a lot to be ashamed of, would and will have a different connotation. A plot regarding mother son incest? A good example and yes, I could name series where it pops up outside of Hentai but it's not common and it's usually neither played seriously or to conclusion. Father-daughter is a different story... And honestly? A series about the real Pile of Shame, which is what I thought I was reading all this time, is a lot more interesting than some guy's personal backlog of stuff that's rare, usually for a reason. Rather than changing the name... |
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rheiders
 Posts: 1137 Location: Colorful Colorado :) |
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Not sure if this was intentional, but it still made me chuckle. I've heard the term "pile of shame" applied to both books and anime, so its use definitely seems to be pretty widespread across many fandoms. Strange that so many people haven't heard it before. Oh well, whatever. If a simple name change will clear up the apparent confusion, I suppose it makes sense to change it^^ The opening couple of paragraphs about how mundane incest has become in anime fandom made me laugh and sigh inwardly at the same time. I don't like to think about how many bad things seem almost normal to me now because of anime. |
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partially
Posts: 702 Location: Oz |
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Honestly I don't see any reason to change it. I have heard the phrase used often enough. However, you could instead simply have at the beginning of each column a short descriptive saying what the column is. I think that is a good idea whatever the name is, because launching straight into the review as Justin does, doesn't really set the scene at all to the uninitiated. Just have a short few words that are at the beginning of every column. You can even adapt Justin's very own words from the first column:
Last edited by partially on Tue Aug 20, 2013 8:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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Well, to be fair it's not like the mother-son incest thing isn't completely untouched as a general statement.
For example, it was one of the main sources of humor in the fairly mainstream Back to the Future, which isn't even really considered a very risque movie. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2541 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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True, but that was more of incidental incest humor, because Marty went back into the past & was interacting with his then-future mother who was the same age as him at the time. It's technically incest, sure, but it also had a bit of a qualifier to it, hence why it's more silly fun than potentially "squicky". Also, Marty didn't want anything to do with his future mom... She was all over him. |
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Surrender Artist
 Posts: 3264 Location: Pennsylvania, USA |
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Yes, I do! I dropped out of anime fandom from 2005 to 2011 and never strayed too far from the mainstream, aside from some 'respectable obscura, so when I started paying attention again finding that incest had gone from a fringe gimmick to like a dozen guys* trying to bone their sisters a season, it was one of the worst of several cultural shocks. Yeah, I don't get it. *I know that this is not literally true, but the hyperbole is reflective of my initial reaction.
I don't know if I've ever heard the idiom before or not, but it wasn't hard for me to grasp what it meant. Even if it's not immediately familiar, it isn't hard to figure out. As shocking as integrating slightly different ways of speaking from your own into your own might be, you'll live. I'd prefer that the title not change. "Pile of Shame," is a very Justin Sevakis title and, frankly, I'd rather not see pedantic backseat editing be vindicated. Seriously, some people harp on the silliest things. |
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Galap
Moderator
Posts: 2354 |
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Well, I haven't seen Yagami-kun's Family Affairs, so I can't make a completely educated comparison, but I wouldn't say that that the incest humor in BTTF is incidental: the main joke is that it's her son that she's all over, and it's funny because it's awkward and makes you cringe. Also funny because of the one sided nature of it, which seems to be the case in Yagami-kun, too.
And I agree Surrender Artist. It's an expression that exists, is used, and is appropriate for this situation. I'm of the view that if it's a real word or phrase, you're allowed to use it and you shouldn't be criticized for doing so, because it's a real word/phrase. If people don't know what it means, they can either figure it out from context or look it up. I had never heard the phrase "pile of shame" used in that way before, but when I heard it, I knew what it meant from the meanings of the individual words and the context. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2261 |
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I don't find the title "pile of shame" very enticing, but I do think it would be simpler to just do this:
Just use the first paragraph and the last and you have the intro to the column and no one ever has an excuse for misunderstanding the purpose of it. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Well, the current thinking is to simply retitle the column 'Buried', so it's more in line with the original column it's based on.
However I just now realized that that's going to get another series of pedants coming in complaining 'HOW IS THIS TITLE BURIED I JUST HEARD ABOUT IT THE OTHER DAY'. Maybe simply adding that first paragraph in italics before each column would explain it to people who are somehow struggling with the extremely simple title 'Pile of Shame'. |
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Etrien
 Posts: 525 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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I'd go with the brief summation/disclaimer at the beginning. Kind of like those old Saturday morning cartoons that gave you the rundown of the general plot in about 15 seconds before the opening chant began.
How surprisingly topical!  The "Daddy wants to play, too!" line has to be one of my favorite moments from that show. That whole show gets me right in the nostalgia, though.
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Just make it simple: Pile of Shame is a synonym for 'backlog'. |
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Jefferson Taylor
 Posts: 6 |
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1_ZEL0ehkE |
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