Forum

vickeyv wrote:

The article it self contains several assumptions and sweeping statements, the paramount to these being that watching anime/fansubs the way recent fans do leads to anti-social behaviour and lack of civility through idolization of characters or what eva.

I concur.

Replace the word "anime" in Jason's article with "television," "rock music," "video games (Doom, Grand Theft Auto)," "violent movies," etc., and you get a typical post-Columbine rant from soccer moms.

dormcat wrote:

vickeyv wrote:

The article it self contains several assumptions and sweeping statements, the paramount to these being that watching anime/fansubs the way recent fans do leads to anti-social behaviour and lack of civility through idolization of characters or what eva.

I concur.

Replace the word "anime" in Jason's article with "television," "rock music," "video games (Doom, Grand Theft Auto)," "violent movies," etc., and you get a typical post-Columbine rant from soccer moms.

Very true, I know I've heard more than my fair share of such rants.

The problem I had with the rant was that it's really nothing new. It's something you hear in every fandom at some point or another-when that fandom begins to go mainstream, the old diehard fans who've been around for a long time start to feel uneasy around the newbies and start to pine for the days when their hobby was something niche and unique, when it felt more like a private club than a big crowd. It happens to pretty much every successful band in exsistance-on a blog somewhere there's probably a really similar rant about how all these new Yellowcard (or whoever) fans have no real understanding of the band because they weren't there when the band was small-time. And also they're jerks and keep pirating Mp3's of their songs, something the original fans would have never done in a million billion years, wink wink nudge nudge.

There's way too many aribtrary generalizations in the rant, too-he's very eager to seperate the two camps by age, as if it's impossible for an older person to just be discovering anime. Likewise, I have a couisin who's only fifteen, but he's been watching anime since he was five (starting with Sailor Moon) so he'd belong in the "first generation" catagory-except he downloads fansubs and acts, well, like a fifteen year old, which seems to be the author's problem with the "second generation" so where do we put him? It'd be great if the issue were all as cut-and-dried as he makes it sound, then we could just set age limits at Otakon and call it a day. It's not that simple.

What's happened here is that the people who got into anime as loud, annoying fourteen year olds have grown up, forgotten that they were ever loud and annoying, and now have to deal with a new crop of kids. It's the classic generation gap issue. You get older, you forget what you were like as a kid, and you decide that today's kids are nothing like you were. No, you say, our generation was perfect and these new youngsters could learn a thing or two from us, by gum. With their MTV and their Sony Xbox and their speakeasies and their Elvis Presley. Typically there's also an attempt to tie the problem to some new fad or technology. As seen here:

Quote:

The new generations of anime fans are a product of the age, all the gadgets that encourage self-absorption and a demand for instant gratification. Some Otaku wanting to pick a fight, or one who stand blindly by his views will always interrupt coherent and intelligent debate on the net.

Do you really think self-absorption, instant gratification, or blindly sticking to an idea are new concepts? Do you really think people weren't rude and stubborn before Blackberries were invented?

I don't think fansubs and people pirating anime has anything to do with when you got into the fandom-fansubs and pirated anime have been around since at least the late 80's, they were just harder to come by. But if it had been as easy as it is today, you can bet more of the older generation would have done it. A lot of them do it now. The problem isn't age or experience, the problem is human nature: there are always going to be dishonest people in all groups and situations.

As the fandom grows, there are going to be more and more rude and annoying people, and there are going to be more people downloading stuff they shouldn't, because they're people and people are like that. It has nothing to do with age or newbie status. A lot of people back in the old days were immature jerks, too. A lot of people who weren't immature jerks back then have become that way. And a lot of the new generation of fans are mature and intellegent and don't pirate anime.

And perhaps most importantly, the obsessive Otaku who has no life beyond anime is nowhere NEAR a product of the new generation. He's been with us from the begining. Like all the jerks and rude people, as the ranks of fandom increase there are more of him, too. Which just makes the importance of teaching him to shower that much more urgent.

Oh, and it should be noted that more fans means more NICE people, too. One of the things I like about anime is that most of the fans, much moreso than in some other fandoms, are geniunly nice, fun people with a wide range of intrests. My advice is to find these people, hang out with them, and try not to worry too much about the annoying ones. That's good advice for life in general, too, methinks.

Rantx3 is an awesome idea.

dormcat wrote:

vickeyv wrote:

The article it self contains several assumptions and sweeping statements, the paramount to these being that watching anime/fansubs the way recent fans do leads to anti-social behaviour and lack of civility through idolization of characters or what eva.

I concur.

Replace the word "anime" in Jason's article with "television," "rock music," "video games (Doom, Grand Theft Auto)," "violent movies," etc., and you get a typical post-Columbine rant from soccer moms.

Well,

By definition, it wouldn't be a rant if the logic behind the argument wasn't inherently flawed.

lazuline wrote:

Well,

By definition, it wouldn't be a rant if the logic behind the argument wasn't inherently flawed.

This is incorrect.

The purpose of Rant Rant Rant! is to facilitate discussion of the topic at hand, which it already has done admirably; I didn't chose this one because it was a masterpiece of infallible logic, I chose it because it's a hot-button issue with many people and it was basically guaranteed to get a real discussion going. There are more eloquent and well-written responses in this thread than I've seen in a while, and it's great.

I concur with the rant. The focus being on the ugly otaku....not the new fan necessarilly. Essentially, it's a result of anime becoming mainstream and the general american adolescent becoming the new anime fan....you get all the junk that comes with it. The guy makes valid points overall, and I agree with him.

It's just that it's more a byproduct of our American culture than anything else.

And I'll admit to "shutting" myself up in my room to watch anime, but that's mainly to tell my roommates not to barge in and make joking remarks about what I'm watching. I'll get out and socialize, but it annoys me when one of them will pop his head in while I'm watching something and spout out, "Kira!" (started when they'd actually hang around while I was rewatching Gundam SEED....you can thus figure out why they'd do that), but anyway....that's a rant of its own.

Last edited by Mohawk52 on Fri Apr 21, 2006 2:44 am; edited 1 time in total

I think Jason has hit the nail dead centre. Nice one mate. I second that.

vickeyv wrote:

Jason even further goes and elaborates sorta on anti-social behaviour. So watching anime alone is really that much of an evil that breeds anti-social behaviour. Being social also comes with great hazards, most of the times even worse hazzards. Anti-social behaviour can lead to lowering of confiedence and limiting ones potential, but being over socical (there is a very thin line between being over social and social which is easily crossed) leads to going to joints, smoking weed, drinking senselessly and what not. THe later leaves uncurable dents on the human's life.

All things in moderation, as with any experiences in, or of, life. There is meaning in the cliché "too much of a good thing turns it into a bad thing" afterall.

Quote:

There is absoultely nothing wrong in tuning into anime when ever or what ever way you like and want.

But the ethical caveat there should be "as long as it's by legit means", otherwise the line is crossed into the "anti-social" side of the gauge. Anti- social behavior, by UK definition, is any action performed by a group, or individual, whether in public, or private, that causes a violation of another group, or individual's legal, civil, or human rights affecting that group, or individual's quality of life.

[EDIT] edited for spelling and grammar.

Hmm, I have to say Jason's rant reminds me of the ol' "Back in my day" rants that young people have had to listen to forever. Young people are doing it all wrong, they're taking for granted that which was hard to obtain before, and they're making fools of themselves in the process.

The problem being, you either already see it that way and agree with it, or you look at the rant as simply a pining for an older time, a nostalgia-driven rant of an old man who doesn't understand how things are. Which makes it mostly irrelevant to anyone, in this case, reading it, since it is either met with a firm agreement or a condecending "Sure, grandpa, sure."

I, for one, can't agree with it. For one, I started really watching anime fairly recently, in college, and thus anime for me was a very social thing. I watched in the dorms with friends. I watched in the anime club with club-mates. We talked about them, laughed together, and so on and so forth. Today, I watch Adult Swim with my friends and talk about the latest (unlicensed) fansub with people I know who also watch them.

If you want to see some depraived basement behavior, go to Gencon. Wink

I'm a tabletop roleplayer, and while I know many successful, socialble, and contributing members of society who roleplay, comparing a rolepaying con to a anime con is an eye opener. It makes the anime con goers look like the affluent. This isn't a rub against roleplayers, of course, I am one! That's just how I see things.

EDIT: By the way, I love Monster and I hope it gets licensed (note the avatar), even though I agree that it wouldn't work on TV. I tried to explain it to a friend of mine as an intelligent drama, and he wouldn't stop laughing. Sadly, I know I'm the minority, not him.

Zac wrote:

lazuline wrote:

Well,

By definition, it wouldn't be a rant if the logic behind the argument wasn't inherently flawed.

This is incorrect.

The purpose of Rant Rant Rant! is to facilitate discussion of the topic at hand, which it already has done admirably; I didn't chose this one because it was a masterpiece of infallible logic, I chose it because it's a hot-button issue with many people and it was basically guaranteed to get a real discussion going. There are more eloquent and well-written responses in this thread than I've seen in a while, and it's great.

Zac, I have to apologize for rallying an army of the grammatically weakest in the community against your fansub rant so many months ago. If I remember correctly, that was during my winter break, and quite honestly, it was fueled more by boredom than ideological championing.

Consequently, I'm not attacking you when I pointed out the fact that the rant you chose was flawed. I'm just stating the obvious.--That being said, I have to agree that tonight's (12:00 Pacific in CA) discussion was a welcome departure from the average anime forum conversation.
それじゃ、今晩は先に帰るよ。

Took the words right out of my mouth. Good start to the rant section. <3

ThirdWizard wrote:

Hmm, I have to say Jason's rant reminds me of the ol' "Back in my day" rants that young people have had to listen to forever. Young people are doing it all wrong, they're taking for granted that which was hard to obtain before, and they're making fools of themselves in the process.

The problem being, you either already see it that way and agree with it, or you look at the rant as simply a pining for an older time, a nostalgia-driven rant of an old man who doesn't understand how things are. Which makes it mostly irrelevant to anyone, in this case, reading it, since it is either met with a firm agreement or a condecending "Sure, grandpa, sure."

"Understanding" in itself is a selective thing. There is old understanding where a person with more experience in life has compared the situation with those past experiences and has come to that conclusion of understanding based on those experiences. On the other side there is a new understanding where a person in there youth is experiencing this same situation for the first time unclouded and fresh. No two will necessarily be exactly the same for either. Remember that nobody knows a road better than those who have been on it before you. But they can only tell you what they experienced and not what you will, but just could. Just ask grandpa. Wink

Quote:

I, for one, can't agree with it. For one, I started really watching anime fairly recently, in college, and thus anime for me was a very social thing. I watched in the dorms with friends. I watched in the anime club with club-mates. We talked about them, laughed together, and so on and so forth. Today, I watch Adult Swim with my friends and talk about the latest (unlicensed) fansub with people I know who also watch them.

I don't think he's saying that just watching anime in itself is anti-social, but that the actions of certain individuals, or groups, because of their watching before and afterwards can be anti-social. The "Beavis & Butthead" affect.

I'm going to ignore the rant (at least for now) and comment on the GANTZ issue:

I really don't see how the violence and sex is an issue. Battle Royale and Berserk have both been released in the U.S. and seem to be doing fine. And Tokyopop seems to have found an audience as they have released a number of explicit adult titles (like Arm of Kannon and Warriors of Tao) in addition to less explicit seinan titles. Viz has the new Signature line that seemst to be aimed specifically at adults (seeing as how their current titles are Monster and Golgo 13, the latter of which is shrinkwrapped much like GANTZ would have to be) that would be perfect for GANTZ. At the moment, I think Golgo 13 and Monster are the only titles in the under the Signature label, so perhaps Viz will release Gantz under it in the near future.

vickeyv wrote:

penguintruth wrote:

Well, that’s my perspective. I'm 19 (so that is roughly g3) and I became hooked on anime/manga around 3rd grade with Sunday morning 6:00am airings of dragonball on UPN. This later snowballed into Sailormoon and so forth...

I am actualy 19 myself but i consider to be a part of the 2nd Generation, becasue when i was like 5+, the shows which were readily broadcast on my local tv stations were 1980 classics, like Transformers, Voltron, G-force, Robotech and even Mazinger Z and later Speed Racer. And i find myself accepting older visual quality where as the post 1999 generation can't bare old styled coloring and stuff, i think.

That's how I see myself as well. I'm 25, so I could really fall either way. But let's face it: I used to get up at 5am specifically to watch Voltron and another show (which the name fails me, but I believe someone later said it was anime as well). At the time, I was 5. And I was obsessed.

It wasn't until I was 15 that I found out about "anime" though. It was when I saw a marathon of Speed Racer on Cartoon Network, and I fell in love. Looking it up, I found out it was anime, mentioned it to a friend, and she suggested Sailor Moon. The following summer it began airing on USA Network, I started watching, and 6 months later I had my first fansubs, and never looked back (meaning I gave up dubs at that point).

I feel Jason's pain about the "Ugly Otaku", but really, I do think a lot of it is an age thing. If a 25-year-old were to act like that, it's a different story. But for now, the ugly otaku I know are usually between the ages of 12 and 18, and I can hope they will grow out of it with some mentoring by older anime fans. Part of what I do is "mentor" a 15-year-old girl about which anime she could consider watching, and the importance of not just being "OMG! That's RULEZ!", but rather to try to come up with coherent discussion that looks beyond how hot the bishounen are, etc. One can actually turn many anime into a very intellectual pursuit if one looks deeper. Which is something that my husband and I do regularly, and which my young friend is looking forward to doing once she can actually see something other than Shaman King and Fullmetal Alchemist. It makes anime a bit less of a "waste" (ie, pure entertainment drivel), in a sense. I have a friend (let's call her Pirate girl...she's worthy of a Rant, that's for sure) who once said to me: "Wow, you're cool, we just need to increase your volume." This coming from a woman who gloats she has a terabyte of fansubs, but has not purchased a single bit of official merchandise/DVDs. And, moreover, a woman who cannot even remember the name of the various anime she has watched, let alone the character names. I'd rather keep a lower volume and actually make anime less of a "must watch everything NOW!" venture.

She, to me, is an example of an "Ugly Otaku", and sadly, she's nearing her mid-20s, and set in her ways. (and I guess I just did a mini-rant, my apologies)

...the teens are just so much more pliable if you try. ^_-

About the rant-

I think the reason these kids are so isolated is that they are misunderstood. Anime isn't mainstream like shows such as Americna Idol and the OC are, so the reason they are isolated is that they feel they have no one to share their interests with. My advice to these kids is to get another hobby to go along with anime. I'd suggest a band they like, or possibly a movie. I'm also a RENThead, and I've strabgely enough found many anime fans who where also fans of RENT. I'm not saying it has to be RENT, that happens to be my thing, and I'm making a suggestion.

Also, I actually don't know many anime fans who watch subs, like the show, but don't buy the dvds. Me and most of my friends who download fansubs are people who will watch a fansub, then buy the show when it is liscensed to support it. Most anime fans I know are actually like that.

konosuke15 wrote:

Also, I agree that fansubbing and all that isnt the 'true' form, but it is what i personally prefer (And, i can't buy the official DVD's, so its a necessary evil for me)...

You's better get a job, then, because all you're doing is stealing from the creators of your favorite anime series. And how can you possibly prefer some 20MB AVI file that you can only watch on your computer over a professionally-produced DVD with dual audio and extras that you can watch on any TV you can find? I don't understand this. It's because of thieves like you that DVD prices are so high.

Also, when's Answerman gonna cut it out with this hiatus crap and start offering prizes again? It's really annoying to see "we're still on hiatus," week after week. What is he doing that he can't pick out some random DVDs he doesn't want and throw them up on the site?

Forum - View topic
Hey, Answerman! [2006-04-21]

Your Anime Rankings - Best of Spring 2024, Apr 1-28

BLUELOCK Anime's 2nd Season Premieres in October

The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Producer Masakazu Kubo on Making an Anime for Hardcore Golf Fans

Bakemonogatari Manga Artist 'Oh! great' Launches New Manga

The ANN Aftershow - I Support Falin's Crimes

Nude Model: Tsubasa Yamaguchi Short Stories Manga Review

This Week in Games - EVO Japan 2024: You Ain't From Chicago If You Ain't Broken exA Before!

The Beauty of Stop-Motion Animation with Bottle George Director Daisuke 'Dice' Tsutsumi

Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2006-04-21]

Forum

Forum - View topic
Hey, Answerman! [2006-04-21]