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ANNCast - Operation Podcast Drop

As for "Japtoons" and similar invective -- unless you are actually of Japanese ethnicity or some relevant East Asian ethnicity and have endured abuse somehow relating to anime...I really don't see where it hurts anybody.

Then the question is what happens to those series that aren't as smart as something like Legend of the Galactic Heroes nor as passionate as Fist of the North Star, but happen to fall short in either (or both) of those categories.

The implication appears to be that they should be unenjoyable for anyone other than anti-intellectual fetishists in search of pandering and personal gratification, because they just aren't good enough to be held in high regard as masterpieces nor passionately bad enough to be guilty pleasures.

Therefore, adding the presence of any commercial pandering to that picture automatically makes them worth dismissing.

I'd disagree, particularly because I think there can be specific elements potentially worth salvaging even in works that fail to meet either of those standards of enjoyment and, from time to time, some people will watch those shows for reasons that aren't entirely intellectually bankrupt. What's more, even the creators may have had a degree of genuine passion and skill, regardless of the cynical exploitation of certain demographics and other signs of questionable execution on their part (or, at the very least, that of the production company involved).

Higurashi comes to mind as a fairly useful example. I think that series had a good core concept, some interesting bits of characterization, established an often psychologically disturbing atmosphere and dealt with a number of very intriguing questions on a thematic level.

I'm not going to pretend Higurashi is one of the greatest series ever made but, on the other hand, I believe it's far from being something that is only going to appeal to the worst of otaku and nobody else.

Charred Knight wrote:

Trust me it's not that exciting

Oh yeah? Well you're not exciting at all!

Ten years ago you would have been considered a pervert and/or child molester for watching this stuff (whether or not it had pervert/child-molester-friendly content) , and these days your little cousins are watching it on friggin' Toon Disney. Surely that doesn't add at least a LITTLE humor to the legacy of the term "Japtoon"?

You'd think Colonydrop was the molesting uncle from your childhood the way you keep stalking them. Most normal people that actually talk to the guys will find them a reasonably nice bunch, so I wonder who's the bigger asshole here (me, but that's besides the point)?

And why does them mentioning Redline scare you?

The way you describe such types of shows, that suggests to me less in the way of degenerate otaku-pandering and more in the vein of just a generally bad show.

If something's not enjoyably campy (so-bad-it's-good) or generally regarded as high-quality (you don't have to teach Einsteinian theory to be a smart show..."smart" in my mind suggests a show that's smartly made rather than professedly intellectual. Redline, for example, is a smartly made film that's not really all that intellectual). Whether or not it engages in some kind of cynical or degenerate pandering is a secondary concern (but still important, depending on what the show represents to consumers and the industry).

What matters is the degree to which the show relies on shameless, heavily telegraphed Internet-baiting gimmicks in order to stay relevant.The past decade is littered with shows that were nothing but otaku gimmick after otaku gimmick and suffered immensely for it. (Code Geass springs most readily to my mind...underneath its relentless barrage of stupid trick-shots and fanservice was nothing but the worst sort of idiot plot. The production issues and timeslot fiasco it ran into only embellished its fundamental flaws.)

I don't think most of Colony Drop disagrees with this assertion. I just think they disagree with you on the frequency with which such hidden virtue actually occurs.

From his impression (which I usually find to be in line with mine if I actually watch something he watched first), and from how you describe it, Higurashi seems to meet most of the criteria of what makes a mediocre-to-bad show by Colony Drop standards. It has an interesting premise (the Groundhog Day thing), but suffers in the actual execution, and stuff like the fetish-pandering with the psychotic female characters and Rena speaking like a demented 3-year-old just makes the show harder to love if you're not bizarrely enraptured with the novelty of the show's premise.

They've caught the attention of many of my peers in the community, I found what they were doing to be interesting, and I thought it'd be a fun conversation. I thought it was.

lol those guys are a-holes. I listen for 2mins and close the browser.

Look, people can write whatever they want on their blogs. There is no need to go the a potcast to tell people what to do. and how their blog suck or not interesting.

I'm glad Zac mentions the racist connotations of "Japtoons", that word that they keep on insisting that they use, and that the origin of the word was exactly how I imagined it.

"Japtoons" as a phrase has always bothered me, due to the whole usage of a racist term in order to refer to anime, even more so than "Japanimation". It sounds like something a white supremacist would use to refer to anime, and how it is poisoning our white youth and subjugating us to the yellow overlords.

First of all, the "Japtoon" thing. People read way too much into the self-flagellating angle "WE HATES ANIME BECAUSE WE HATES OURSELVES" on this, when really we just use it because it makes oversensitive people mad. Is that trolling? Well, duh. But we're not just doing it to get a rise out of you, we're doing it because HOPEFULLY you will see some aspect of the humor that we do in it.

they don't even know the meaning of "blog". Blog is not news article or review, Or "for people". most people write blog for them self or friends to read only like a journal.

I'm glad Ashura came out to explain the "Japtoon" thing - not that I was personally offended but that I'm glad it was only explicit humor for fans who aren't over-sensitive. To be fair, I still think the "Oriental Video Animation" is more clever.

Given that there are still frequent Internet discussions over what constitutes as anime (even though there is beginning to be a majority opinion), perhaps a return to a more explicit name such as Japanimation may not be such a bad idea. Compared to "Japtoon", as a veteran of the "Japanimation Times", I never saw it as racist. Maybe because literally everyone else I heard use the term said 'Japan-imation', rather than 'Japanese-animation'. Of course, the knee-jerk reaction that a lot of fans seem to have with calling anime cartoons is something that just seems completely juvenile and sophomoric to me.

Given that there are still frequent Internet discussions over what constitutes as anime (even though there is beginning to be a majority opinion), perhaps a return to a more explicit name such as Japanimation may not be such a bad idea. Compared to "Japtoon", as a veteran of the "Japanimation Times", I never saw it as racist. Maybe because literally everyone else I heard use the term said 'Japan-imation', rather than 'Japanese-animation'. Of course, the knee-jerk reaction that a lot of fans seem to have with calling anime cartoons is something that just seems completely juvenile and sophomoric to me.