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INTEREST: Anime Director Yamakan Apologizes for 'Disabled' Otaku Comment


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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6203
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:54 pm Reply with quote
Oh look, it's Yamakan again... Rolling Eyes
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Set1229



Joined: 30 May 2012
Posts: 146
Location: Pittsburgh
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 6:37 pm Reply with quote
Ha! I know someone who is physically handicapped, watches anime and still crushes people's hubris in fighting games. Yamakan should face Brolylegs, in person.
Besides, he shouldn't be mocking those with so-called disabilities, anyway. Has he forgotten how successful Satoshi Tajiri is with Pokemon? Having Aspergers, myself, Tajiri is a hero and I barely play his games.
Just wait until all the staff at the companies interpret his rudeness as a comment about their own children. He'll be hated even more!
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Animeking1108



Joined: 26 Apr 2011
Posts: 1244
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:07 pm Reply with quote
Well, this guy just made my Blacklist. Studio Pierrot, Rumiko Takahashi, and Nagaru Tanigawa welcome your company.
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sirdano1



Joined: 06 Jul 2011
Posts: 295
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:15 pm Reply with quote
Calm down people, he's just being tsundere. He knows how you love that.
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Set1229



Joined: 30 May 2012
Posts: 146
Location: Pittsburgh
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 7:40 pm Reply with quote
Animeking1108 wrote:
Well, this guy just made my Blacklist. Studio Pierrot, Rumiko Takahashi, and Nagaru Tanigawa welcome your company.


Why those people, specifically?
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CrownKlown



Joined: 05 May 2011
Posts: 1762
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:23 pm Reply with quote
The thing I dont get is that he is what 40-50 years old, so you cant watch past a certain age but you can make it? That makes absolutely no sense.
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mglittlerobin



Joined: 28 Aug 2008
Posts: 1071
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:57 pm Reply with quote
Dr.N0 wrote:
As a real disabled otaku, I must admit I am more than a little pissed few seem to see much of a problem associating disabilities to an abnormal state. Sorry if I am biased, but that seems to be the more controversial point of his all-around insulting post.

I'm disabled and I find what he said to be very offensive as a person who reviews anime to earn some extra money. I've always loved animation whether it's eastern or western and he's definitely kicking his own audience in the face, what an idiot!

Animation doesn't have an "age limit" or their wouldn't be adult animated comedies on TV or adult anime in Japan.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar


Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 16939
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:01 pm Reply with quote
A few posts have been removed for being overly tasteless and rude. We're all anime fans obviously but let's keep some modicum of decency here please. Thank you.
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moogrin



Joined: 12 Jun 2016
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:13 pm Reply with quote
mglittlerobin wrote:
Dr.N0 wrote:
As a real disabled otaku, I must admit I am more than a little pissed few seem to see much of a problem associating disabilities to an abnormal state. Sorry if I am biased, but that seems to be the more controversial point of his all-around insulting post.

I'm disabled and I find what he said to be very offensive as a person who reviews anime to earn some extra money. I've always loved animation whether it's eastern or western and he's definitely kicking his own audience in the face, what an idiot!


+1 as another disabled anime fan. This guy's "apology" is ridiculous.
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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:52 pm Reply with quote
Let us be frank, "watching cartoons" if you want to be taken "seriously" usually isn't considered a mature action in General Western or Japanese society, unless you are an otaku or a "former" otaku watching Anime/cartoons beyond even high school age can be taken as being "immature".

The question of the day is what is he really trying to apologize for, insulting his potential audience? making the insult in the first place? inferring the insult could be hurting those unrelated to the comment?
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Weazul-chan



Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 625
Location: Michigan
PostPosted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 11:40 pm Reply with quote
moogrin wrote:
mglittlerobin wrote:
Dr.N0 wrote:
As a real disabled otaku, I must admit I am more than a little pissed few seem to see much of a problem associating disabilities to an abnormal state. Sorry if I am biased, but that seems to be the more controversial point of his all-around insulting post.

I'm disabled and I find what he said to be very offensive as a person who reviews anime to earn some extra money. I've always loved animation whether it's eastern or western and he's definitely kicking his own audience in the face, what an idiot!


+1 as another disabled anime fan. This guy's "apology" is ridiculous.
another disabled anime fan here, and one in my late 30's, also pretty pissed here. I went to see if anything he'd worked on was on my anime backlist and crossed it off.

also, he seems like the general kind of person that CS Lewis was thinking of when he said this:
Quote:
Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.


dude needs to grow up and not criticize people for liking stuff that's harmless fun just because he thinks they're too old for it.
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Agent355



Joined: 12 Dec 2008
Posts: 5113
Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready...
PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 3:23 am Reply with quote
OK, what does he think about people who continue to work in the anime industry way past the point where they lost all desire to? Maybe he should consider letting a younger, more passionate creator take over his job so he doesn't have to think about otaku anymore.
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TsukasaElkKite



Joined: 22 Nov 2005
Posts: 3958
PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 8:03 am Reply with quote
Well I guess I'm a disabled 28 year old. What an idiot.
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Mew Berry



Joined: 02 Apr 2016
Posts: 186
PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 10:40 am Reply with quote
Set1229 wrote:
Animeking1108 wrote:
Well, this guy just made my Blacklist. Studio Pierrot, Rumiko Takahashi, and Nagaru Tanigawa welcome your company.


Why those people, specifically?


No, really, I want to know what Studio Pierrot did, of all people/companies.

As for Yamakan, well... there's now an exactly 0% chance I'll support any of his work. If he was trying to convince me not to watch his anime specifically, he absolutely succeeded.
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Velshtein



Joined: 27 Oct 2015
Posts: 72
PostPosted: Fri Sep 29, 2017 10:52 am Reply with quote
Maybe I'm weird or something, but I don't find myself offended by Yamamoto's comments.

There's been a failure to recognize the characteristics of the older anime watchers whom Yamamoto has likely been exposed to. Notice how he uses "people who watch anime past an appropriate age" and "otaku" as synonymous. Perhaps I am too optimistic, but I would expect forum posters on an anime site to be familiar with the meaning of the term "otaku" in Japanese culture versus how that term is used among Western anime fans. Otakus, as the term is understood in Japan, are not seen in a positive light by the average Japanese person. They are roughly the Japanese version of what we call "neck-beards" in the West. So Yamamoto's comments more or less reflect the sentiments of your average Japanese citizen. You might as well get angry with most of Japan while you're at it. As an anime director, one can imagine the amount of dysfunctional/unhealthy otaku he has witnessed throughout his career.

So if you ask me, the outrage expressed in this thread is misplaced, and based upon a failure to understand the types of unsavory people he has likely been exposed to.
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