Forum - View topicANN's coverage of male idol series.
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#861208
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I think that the attitude that ANN and other sites have towards these series is a barrier of entry to Western fans.
I think that a large part of the reason these shows have failed to take off outside of Japan is that dismissive attitude on the part of ANN and other large anime sites and blogs. On English sites, it's hard to avoid that attitude of, "No one in their right mind would ever watch this," which made me hesitant to try these, as well. But once I did, I realized that these shows have really fun characters and positive stories, and they don't deserve to be cast aside like that. I just wish more people would give them a fair chance. I went to Japan last year, and male idol series are everywhere. Not just in Ikebukuro - there are a lot of anime-related stores and places in Shinjuku and Shibuya as well, and almost all of them had more male idol series than anything else (bishounen in general, but male idol series are more prominent than sports shows now). I found out about a series that had been around since 2013, that ANN and other English sites had never mentioned, and fell in love with it. This year, it got an anime. ANN's news coverage of it basically amounted to, "Oh, this is a thing?". The preview guide reviews were basically, "Another male idol show? Ew." FUNi released StarMyu season 1 on discs, sub-only, and because it's a disc release, ANN had to review it... and the reviewer actually liked it, and had a lot of positive things to say about it! But unless an ANN reader saw that one article, they'd never realize that these shows have anything to offer. To everyone else, these shows remain simply the butt of a joke. I doubt that many of the people who voted for male idol series as the second most disliked trend have actually watched any of them. (And even if you've watched one, that's no reason not to try another. They're not all the same. If I said I saw "Wedding Peach" and didn't like it and I'd never watch another magical girl show again, you'd say I was crazy. Why is it suddenly okay to say that about male idol shows?) I also feel like, by just covering anime and manga, ANN and other Western sites are sort of detached from the Japanese fandom, especially with female-targeted series. Most of these start as otome games or drama CDs, and they can become very important without having an anime at all. Though, I recognize that this isn't new, or unique to male characters - there has never been much Touhou coverage here, for the same reasons - but that doesn't mean I don't think it's something that needs to change. I don't think that international fans are somehow obligated to copy Japanese fans. I just think that sites like ANN exist to bridge the language barrier to all of the anime-related content Japan has to offer, and yet all of these sites - not just ANN - choose to limit their coverage, and in doing so, they do international fans a disservice. Just, please try to be more open-minded about these shows. That goes for both the editors and whoever happens to be reading this. Try watching a few episodes of Marginal #4 and StarMyu. I think that these two are really the best of the genre, for anime, at least. As for their music, which is actually the main focus of the series, please try these: (All official, region-free uploads from the Japanese publishers) Pythagoras series: Lagrange Point (and this one) ; Unicorn Jr. < These have really unique and interesting songs. Nebulas More usual style of song, but amazing singing. Tsukipro series: Growth (and this one) - some of the most interesting and compelling songwriting in this genre. The songwriter also released his own album under the Tsukipro label, as well as an album of piano versions of his songs for the units. So just... please give these a chance. |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10421 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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A few notes.
1 - We don't "have to" cover disc releases. Our reviewer, or our editor, chose to review that title. 2 - The reviewer liked it, how can you say we dismissed it? This is a clear example of us doing exactly what you want us to do, but I guess your opinion is that this is an exception and we generally don't cover these enough. 3 - We cover all anime series that are simulcast in the preview guide, and from there we use reader feedback (statistical and comments) to determine which shows we cover more. If something isn't covered, it's because we see lack of interest from the readers. 4 - I agree about a problem with Preview guide reviews opening with dismissive comments. I'll be bringing this up with Zac this week. It's not only related to male idol show. 5 - We simply don't have the resources to cover all anime related material. 90% of our coverage is focused on what works (what people read about when we do cover it) and about 10% is us trying to introduce things that our readers aren't familiar with, but we think they should know about. Basically, if there are 100 things to cover, but we only have the resources to cover 50, we cover the 50 most important. We are constantly working to be able to cover more and more content. I have 3 projects underway to finance coverage of more music, more games and more light novels. -t |
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