Forum - View topicINTEREST: Reki Kawahara Apologizes to Voice Actors for Latest Sword Art Online Episode
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Lifesong
Posts: 2 |
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Using Twitter's translate feature to read the whole set of tweets seems to change the tone a bit. It reads more like he is thanking the staff for doing a great job with their roles and explaining why he has written so many similar scenarios. It's only a slight difference in tone and context, but seeing the praise makes a huge difference. At the very least it's obvious enough that he wasn't tweeting for the sole sake of apologizing to the actresses.
There is a big difference in casually apologizing for creating something difficult to make into an anime versus deeply apologizing for the content's existence and acting like it shouldn't have been adapted the way it was or at all. Most of the reactions I'm reading online seems to be assuming the later. Everything I've been able to analyze makes me think it's the former. |
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stannisbaratheon
Posts: 61 |
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The argument is that the author is a bad author who can't write diverse villains and just thinks every villain wants to rape people,.The villains also are generically greedy, generically evil, generically sadistic, and generically make creepy faces. ALL of that is repetitive nonsense 3 seasons into this series, we get more over-smirking psychopaths who are evil just cause and want to rape. That is terrible writing and the rape thing is a reminder of how bad the villains are, its not JUST the rape that is random and stupid, its everything about the villains.
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2209 |
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Kawahara is that special kind of irritating where he writes stupid, problematic things like this and is confused at to why people get angry. It's what I like to call "Idiots in the Kitchen." He's a dumb pulp writer who thinks he's smarter than he actually is, and it makes what should be a fun, escapist fantasy into a tonally inconsistent chore. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4579 |
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Hell, it's at least four times. Remember the freaking tentacle rape slugs that attacked Asuna after she escaped from her cage in the ALO arc? The slugs that had no other reason whatsoever to exist other than making the scene particularly gross? And that's not even counting the other scene with Kirito's loli waifu getting attacked and licked by a tentacle plant. It's utterly ridiculous. Bottom line is that Kawahara is an absolute hack who doesn't remotely have the chops to handle a topic this serious. |
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Lin Liren
Posts: 77 |
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Mr Kawahara shouldn't need to apologize
He wrote a tense and compelling scene that frankly showcased the ugliness of feudal inequality that countless young girls in our historical past also fell to (though not enforced by "divine" power), and remained faithful to the central thematic motif of His Setting: The True Colors of A Hero Shine Through When You Refuse To Back Down In The Face Of Cruelty, Even If It Hurts You Doing So. When Engeo broke through divine mandate and relieves the brutes of the ability to EVER literally lay their hands on anyone ever again. Mr Kawahara stuck true to his ideals, and yet still has the decency to apologize to the Voice Actresses having to act in one of the most chilling Anime horror moments (yes, horror) in recent memory. He is a True Gentleman for doing so. Why shouldn't Mr Kawahara need to apologize, you ask? Because in stark contrast, there is a heartless jackass in the west called george rr martin who constantly scribbles scenes with innocent children successfully violated, with the beast in question responsible never having to face retribution or take responsibility for his actions. Hell, they throw innocent children out of windows to avoid taking responsibility for being caught committing incest as casually as breathing air, and NEVER have to take responsibility for that either! When faced with ANY questioning to how "sacred" his scribblings are, he in contrast just sneers and shrugs "it was the medieval ages, it was dark, deal with it" and even FLIPS THE FINGER AT INTERVIEWERS when the questions get too hard, much less apologize. martin scribbles white supremacist garbage that celebrates rape and cruelty by having the "heores" of his world NEVER needing to take responsibility for their actions. He flips the finger at anyone who protests; he is showered with praise and worshipped as a god and savior of fantasy literature. In the world of Kawahara Reki, rape is ALWAYS punished and the victims are saved and given the chance to recover into lives of happiness. He apologizes for even letting the actresses experience such horror. HE is the one regarded as a scumbag. What the HELL is wrong with this double-standard picture. |
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db999
Posts: 300 |
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As a fan of both SAO and ASOIAF, there’s a major difference in how both series handle the rape content. SAO uses it solely for shock value and after the scene ends, it’s never mentioned again and the story doesn’t explore how that event affects the character involved. Maybe this instance is different, I haven’t gotten this far in SAO. But in ASOIAF rape is definitely not used for shock value alone. When characters get raped in ASOIAF the story usually explores how the events affect the victim. Most of the times the POV character is the one who gets raped and we get to hear their thoughts as it's happening and they reflect on how it affected them. It’s fine to compare two stories that both tackle rape it’s only natural. But I think in this case your complaint is more with the author’s responses to criticism about the content. If you're judging it on that merit I agree that Reki Kawahara handled the criticism with much more grace than George R.R. Martin, but if you compare the actual content ASOIAF handles the material way better than SAO does because it actually explores the aftermath.
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db999
Posts: 300 |
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Also, this quote makes me think you haven’t actually read or seen the source material because multiple characters do in fact suffer negative consequences and face retribution. spoiler[Jaime gets captured by the Starks and after Katelyn lets him go he gets his hand cut off and has to deal with not being able to be a good fighter anymore. Viserys gets murdered by having molten gold poured over his head, Khal Drogo gets killed by his own kin, The Mountain gets stabbed by Oberyon Martell and dies a slow and painful death due to poison, and Tywin Lannister gets murdered by his own son while he’s on the toilet.] All the characters I mentioned here, excluding spoiler[Jaime], have either raped other characters or orchestrated it in the case of spoiler[Tywin]. I have many more examples of the villains getting killed or punished due to these types of actions. Characters definitely get punished for their actions. I can understand being frustrated with criticisms of a work you really enjoy, that's partially why I responded as I'm a fan of ASOIAF and SAO, but I feel this comparison really doesn't do SAO any favors. All that being said I greatly applaud Reki Kawahara for how he handled this situation, even though I don't think he necessarily needed to apologize. |
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ChrissyC
 Posts: 545 |
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Christ, I'm not the kind to debate online, but have you ever read A Song of Ice and Fire? Look, I'm genuinely interested in how you came up with these conclusions on Mr.Martin. And, I don't think it's a good idea to deflect controversy and point fingers. With that said. It's ironic to say the sexual violence used in SAO is justified because it has happened in history, yet use it against Martin? If you read ASoIaF there are sections where men are hanged for raping and pillaging. Martin's characters are in a low-fantasy setting, based off the War of Roses, with the environment and characters being realistic, where wills are broken, crime goes unpunished, and characters are grey with leaning qualities to black or white (in terms of the moral spectrum). Martin often emphasizes that writers should tell the truth. It takes a walk outside, a look at the news, or a textbook to realize we don't live inside a world of White Knights and Evil Wizards. How is ASoIaF white supremacist garbage? The story is based on Europe in the 14th Century, I'm not sure where a lot of color is going to appear, yet, there are characters like Grey Worm, Missandei, and Summer Islanders who are black and not under the hand of the "white man". When has George R.R. Martin ever acted like this douchebag you paint him as? Here is Martin giving the finger to people who think he'll die before volumes six and seven come out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTOrBNCeF1Y For the record, if someone wants to write sexual violence they should be able to, sexual violence and violence are inextricable in harsh environments, however, it's no excuse for bad writing, such as the Kick the Dog trope which seems to be one of the main arguments of Kawahara's decision. I'll end with George R.R Martin's own words when asked from EW about sexual violence: "The books reflect a patriarchal society based on the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were not a time of sexual egalitarianism. It was very classist, dividing people into three classes. And they had strong ideas about the roles of women. One of the charges against Joan of Arc that got her burned at the stake was that she wore men’s clothing—that was not a small thing. There were, of course, some strong and competent women. It still doesn’t change the nature of the society. And if you look at the books, my heroes and viewpoint characters are all misfits. They’re outliers. They don’t fit the roles society has for them. They’re ‘cripples, bastards, and broken things‘—a dwarf, a fat guy who can’t fight, a bastard, and women who don’t fit comfortably into the roles society has for them (though there are also those who do—like Sansa and Catelyn). “Now there are people who will say to that, ‘Well, he’s not writing history, he’s writing fantasy—he put in dragons, he should have made an egalitarian society.’ Just because you put in dragons doesn’t mean you can put in anything you want. If pigs could fly, then that’s your book. But that doesn’t mean you also want people walking on their hands instead of their feet. If you’re going to do [a fantasy element], it’s best to only do one of them, or a few. I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction. Most stories depict what I call the ‘Disneyland Middle Ages’—there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor, but they didn’t want to show what those societies meant and how they functioned. “I have millions of women readers who love the books, who come up to me and tell me they love the female characters. Some love Arya, some love Dany, some love Sansa, some love Brienne, some love Cersei—there’s thousands of women who love Cersei despite her obvious flaws. It’s a complicated argument. To be non-sexist, does that mean you need to portray an egalitarian society? That’s not in our history; it’s something for science fiction. And 21st century America isn’t egalitarian, either. There are still barriers against women. It’s better than what it was. It’s not Mad Men any more, which was in my lifetime. “And then there’s the whole issue of sexual violence, which I’ve been criticized for as well. I’m writing about war, which what almost all epic fantasy is about. But if you’re going to write about war, and you just want to include all the cool battles and heroes killing a lot of orcs and things like that and you don’t portray [sexual violence], then there’s something fundamentally dishonest about that. Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It’s not a strong testament to the human race, but I don’t think we should pretend it doesn’t exist. “I want to portray struggle. Drama comes out of conflict. If you portray a utopia, then you probably wrote a pretty boring book.” Source: https://ew.com/article/2015/06/03/george-rr-martin-thrones-violence-women[/url] |
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Lin Liren
Posts: 77 |
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I will admit: The above was me wanting my pound of flesh for all the sanctimonious "Anime is for kids" and "Anime is only watched by bloodthirsty-perverts" accusations that come from the elitist (as opposed to casual) george rr martin fans who also happen to hold Anime in general in contempt.
It is when those folks, after trumpeting how what THEY watch is "compelling intelligent television with epic battles", turn around and cite Anime Heroic Fantasy like Sword Art Online as trash in comparison that the match is thrown on the fuse, so to speak. Fairy Dance in particular is ALL about a Warrior who saved Thousands questing with His Daughter to save their wife/mother and reunite their broken family, and waging an all out war in the name of love to do so. That is a heartfelt, poetic and human epic, not unlike The Knight's Tale by Chaucer; and they have the temerity to dismiss it as pulp because it is not written by an old white man. Jackass journalists like Stacey Dooley (of BBC) who scribble smear campaigns using chaste and good natured works like "Girls Und Panzer" as "evidence" for us being perverts do NOT help make the fuse burn any longer either. This week, after yet another Anime-Hater cited Episode 10 as "Why Anime Fans are perverts who should all be locked up...." The match skipped the fuse, went straight for the keg, which EXPLODED. And as stated in the opening, I needed my pound-of-flesh, and REFUSED to be the "good silent Asian" of 1980's movies who passively LETS people insult his culture's heroes without retribution. Sorry if that was less than tactful; the rage was simply inconsolable. All the same, it just feels like a horrid double standard how martin writes far more graphic horrors and is lauded as a god.... and Kawahara is branded a scumbag for writing far less in an otherwise good-natured Heroic Fantasy Epic in Comparions. EDIT POST SCRIPT. As for the "white supremacist" part, I point you to this infamous and sickening shot (and the point where I left the franchise and never looked back 5 years ago) https://i2.wp.com/www.publicmedievalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/tumblr_mo7lizGuK51rkzueko1_1280.jpg?fit=1280%2C700&ssl=1 |
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ChrissyC
Posts: 545 |
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It’s not healthy to let those things get to you, try to avoid it, you know try don’t like you and you don’t like them, at least now, no one is coming for the other with pitchforks and torched. Yes, unfortunately there are people who aren’t as interested in other things because it is not made by or starring people who look or sound like them, but again, don’t go doing it do people who don’t have those intentions like George R.R Martin. I’m an Asian male too. I get where certain frustrations come from, especially as western society expects you to be docile and passive. What we know for sure is that the show runners and Martin did not intend for that to be a white supremacist scene, I forgot to mention the West Asians like the Martel Family, Melisandre, and that the story’s final arc is closing around a West Asian inspired religion. The scene with Danerys isn’t intended to be any form of white supremacy, it’s not even like someone making a rape joke or a racist joke and off-handedly saying it’s not meant to offend, I sincerely believe they didn’t mean it, and it can’t really be racist if it doesn’t consistently promote that message, let alone if we consider that one time. |
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Top Gun
Posts: 4579 |
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...did you seriously just compare a horrifically-written, blatantly-misogynistic arc like Fairy Dance to Chaucer? Wow. |
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aereus
Posts: 574 |
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Not excusing the content per se, as I also found that sort of thing very hackneyed poor writing even beyond the ethics of it, but you should understand when this stuff was written. AFAIK he was still in high school when he first wrote SAO Aincrad in 2001. Alicization was written in 2004. Growing up in the late 80s and 90s, there was a lot of graphic anime/manga content in Japan. Stuff like Fist of the Northstar, Bubblegum Crisis OVA, Vampire Hunter D, and numerous others. I can see a teenager growing up around that content feeling it was part of what made an edgy "epic" story. And at this point it was written 14 years ago... |
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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Hey, all art is subjective. If you ever studied literature, you'd know that the quality of the work is all in the analysis. Speaking of which, I wonder how many classics we'd have to disown, censor or rewrite if we used our modern-day sensibilities to analyze them. |
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Lin Liren
Posts: 77 |
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Note how I only used "A Knight's Tale" in my comparison as opposed to the entire Canterbury Tales.
The Knights Tale is also a tale about Epic Wars waged in the name of Undying Love.... but raw emotions aside, that is where the similarities end. ...and if anything, Knights Tale is the very definition of misogynist and moronic in plot, but heartfelt in human emotion. The Knights Tale is literally a stream-of consciousness ramble about two young heroes who fell from grace and spent the rest of the next 20 years of their lives pining over the image of a girl they see locked in a tower. So lovesick over a face they saw for a second, they fall to alcohol induced melancholia and debauchery, and finally in the name of winning the love of a shadow who has not even met THEM, wage an Inter-Army Duel which hundreds of men die and countless more women made widows in the name of winning her hand in marriage. And then die of a broken heart when THAT foolish waste of lives proved to be a futile folly of a ploy. A Knight's Tale is still regarded as a classic due to its passionate prose and raw emotions, but if anything, Kirigaya Kazuto (Kirito), also rescuing his Princess from the dark tower, waged his war for FAR more Noble and Pure Motives. Cited Fairy Dance in comparison to Knights Tale merely as a way to point out that yes, it is ALSO an Epic based on Medieval Romantic Notions, where the heroes are ruled by their often illogical but very human passions. (And indeed, both share VERY conservative and traditional stances when it comes to the perceived "proper" roles of Women) It may not (yet) be a classic, and it most certainly was NOT penned by an old white neckbeard, but hey, it's still as valid in terms of being a Fantasy Epic. |
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SWAnimefan
Posts: 634 |
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Kudos for pointing this out! It's not uncommon where scenes in literary works got altered for the sake of the screen. And with the upcoming Live Action SAO, this very well could happen again. For an example, replacing the Oberon rape scene with something equally appalling and Reki still getting blamed. What Reki did was highly admirable in apologizing. Nowadays you either get some passive-aggressive apology or they wait out the fires of social media. But to go to the extra mile like he did, is respectful. |
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