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ANNCast - All-Star Supernerds

I like how "Not to be rude, but" is always followed by someone being rude. You were rude earlier too! Boy you're just not very good at this "not being rude" thing are you?

As for G-Gundam, I've been working with anime for a very long time, have known countless Gundam fans who would talk my ear off about the franchise and have literally not once ever in my entire history as a fan and a professional ever heard anyone even one time talk about G-Gundam in any capacity OTHER than how zany and hilarious the stereotype Gundams are. That is all anyone has -EVER- said about the show within my range of hearing in 15 years as an anime fan. Maybe you should spearhead the movement to get people to talk about the series' other merits instead of just LOL MEXICAN GUNDAM.

Well if you boil it down to the most rudimentary concept then sure, you can get a show about 'a kid who does stuff' in just about any country in the world, but it's the execution and content that separates them. I mean, just compare those two. What's appropriate in terms of violence is like day and night (Avatar couldn't show people getting punched or anything.. while Naruto has guys getting their heads/limbs chopped up and beaten to a pulp/stabbed) Or in terms of the writing, you have the 'good guys' in Naruto assassinating innocent people in cold blood and all kinds of morally ambiguous things that would never fly in kid's shows here.

Or for another example, Detective Conan being a kids show in Japan that routinely deals with gruesome murder cases of men, women, children, animals, and other horrible things. The most Scooby Doo does is a guy in a mask who wants to like steal the deed to a property or something. No way you could make a show like Conan here (it had to be stuck on at like 2AM on Adult Swim) Despite them both being 'mystery cartoons' they're not comparable at all.

Plus general things some people take for granted like actual good music,

opening and endings (multiple ones that change as the show goes on, no less), eyecatches, next episode previews, omakes, and all that stuff.

Basically, if you wanted to make a show like that here, you'd be out of luck since you have to conform to kids network regulations in terms of not only censorship and stuff, but also the way cartoons are made (seems like networks are trying to abolish theme songs all together these days to make way for more commercials.. Cartoon Network limits them to like 10 second melodies ... I know Greg Weisman who made the current Young Justice cartoon said something similar in an interview how opening themes are a thing of the past)

But probably the best example is how people complain about moe or whatever a lot, but did you know pretty much every show pitched to the networks that features a female is shot down in America outside once in a blue moon? You should be thankful Japan has no problems letting a female star in a cartoon. I know I am.

That being said, I don't really think that moe shows are something to be thankful about as a woman just because they have female characters. The girls in poorly-written, fanbait moe shows are basically no more than objects. They're products, specifically crafted to appeal to a certain demographic.

@Jessica Hart,

I'm not arguing against your contention but this is exciting: Merida from Pixar's Brave, to be released next year.

With a beautiful fighting girl as the protagonist, it is sooooo anime.

Just to clarify, you're strictly talking in terms of animation, right?

But even if you are sticking solely to animation, Naruto's writing and such sure as hell isn't anything of any real quality, especially not compared to that plenty of other anime out there. But, then again, the series as a whole isn't of quality compared to plenty of other stuff out there either, tbh.

So, your argument is that because Japanese shows for children are more violent than we have here in the US, that makes them better? Different I can maybe agree with, but the basic plots are still pretty damn similar. And I don't think having more blood in a cartoon makes it anymore special. Baccano!, for example, is a great show, and also a very violent show--but it's not great because it's so violent, it's great because of the eccentric cast, the strong sense of setting, the fantastic acting in both the Japanese and English tracks, the animation, the unusual way it tells its story, etc.

PlYou think we don't have shows with good music in the USA? Heck, do you think that Avatar (or MLP:FiM even) doesn't have good music?

Do any of those really add a huge amount to the show, though? Sure, they're nice extras, but does having a good opening and a gag in-between episode breaks make a show better? I don't think it does, not by much.

I think what the guys in the podcast were talking about when they said you wouldn't see something like Redline here isn't that you wouldn't see things like eyecatches or more violence or J-Pop opening themes in a show here. That's a given, it's a cultural thing. I think what they meant is more in terms of style, story content, etc. Sure, Naruto has some anime conventions that haven't made it over here because of the different ways our industries work, or cultural things, etc--but that doesn't really make Naruto all that unique or special.

Okay. I want to preface this by saying I don't hate moe anime. I love Toradora! (is that moe? I don't even know anymore, that word gets thrown around so much) and Clannad, and Madoka Magica is one of my favorite shows. That being said, I don't really think that moe shows are something to be thankful about as a woman just because they have female characters. The girls in poorly-written, fanbait moe shows are basically no more than objects. They're products, specifically crafted to appeal to a certain demographic. While some moe shows feature well-written characters (Toradora and Madoka are two I'm thinking of in particular), the generic harem show has girls that are less characters and more a collection of popular character traits. (This isn't even just a moe thing or a female character thing--look at any reverse harem show, like Uta-Pri or Pretear, and you get the same thing. Hell, a lot of Ouran's humor is skewering this practice in shoujo series.) The idea of a female character as a beautiful object meant to sell merchandise is not something I'd particularly like to celebrate.

Also, I think you're wrong that shows featuring female main characters get shot down. There is some idea that girls don't watch cartoons out there, but even that has been directly challenged. Just look at Powerpuff Girls and how much of a phenomena that was. Take a look at My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and how its popularity has sky rocketed. (In particular, MLP was made with the goal in mind to prove that a show could feature a diverse, well-written cast of females as the main characters and do well.) Also, if you haven't heard yet, Avatar has a new cartoon series coming out soon--it'll feature a female avatar as the main character.

When you said 'what's moe and what isn't is impossible to tell anymore given how often that word gets thrown around' that kind of proves my point. Who are you (or anyone, really, not really singling you out) to decide if a show is just 'pointless fap fodder' or an actual good show? K-ON seems to be called moe by a lot of people, but guess what: in ANN's last poll about it, there were far more females supported the series than males, so apparently they don't have much of a problem with it. Most K-ON fans I know are female, who love the characters and relate to them. Are you going to tell them they're wrong? Unless we actually analyze the characters and stop making sweeping generalizations like 'all moe is poorly written', then it's extremely unfair to just lump everything together.

But I have noticed most people who bash moe for being sexist tends to be males.. females don't seem to make as big of a deal about it, funny enough

Or to put it in a more real world setting, those kinds of attitudes is what keeps females out of starring roles in animation here. They have to be so concerned with who thinks the leads will be 'sexist' or just 'fap fodder' or whatever. You have to jump through a lot of hoops and homogenize your lead heroine here so as not to offend people (just look at all the backlash and bile Princess and the Frog went through when Disney made the mistake of saying it was the first 'black Disney Princess'.. suddenly everyone had to inject on how a black character would 'act' and they couldn't please everyone since everyone had different ideas that contradicted one another.) It's no longer 'your character', it's a character designed by the committee to be as 'sensitive' and 'PC' as possible. PC-ness is really the main problem here. Cutey Honey would probably be called 'moe fap fodder' or something by people if they tried to make a new season today (let alone here, where it'd probably be called vile and sexist or something) but it's one of my favorite shows. I'm glad Japan just continues making their stuff without caring about those kinds of groups think (if they even do, in Japan)

I heard the director was fired from that... and that's never a good sign, but eh, I'm not really a big Pixar fan to begin with. Also it just kind of adds to the whole stigma of "every female starring animated movie in America has to be a fairy tale princess flick". At least Lilo & Stitch wasn't Way back when. You'll never see a movie like Perfect Blue or Paparika out of them...

...Moe at it's very core is based on infantilizing female characters...

That's not just a "moe" problem, that's an all too pervasive "anime" problem. And not just female characters.

And it's still something western animation companies can only dream of producing.

I mean, you have the guys behind Ben 10 and Avatar gushing about Naruto...

I like the tag-team duo type of relationships, where characters perform well with one another and bounce off of each other's strengths and weaknesses (which may eventually form into a romance). Like Rosette/Chrono. Or Lawrence/Holo.

I agree, those are some of the best types of character pairings. It's a shame they're not always the norm.

@Jessica Hart--I could keep arguing but I think we'll probably just end up going around in circles since our tastes are very clearly different, so I'm going to just nip this in the bud and agree to disagree. I will say this, though--I am actually a woman, and while I don't think all "moe" shows are necessarily degrading or sexiest, I think a lot of them are. I don't always care for being "PC" because I don't always agree with what people think of as being PC, but I don't think it's unreasonable to want fully fleshed out, well-written female characters. I'd much prefer Tiana from The Princess and the Frog to a stereotypical moe heroine. She's a realistic character with flaws, a clear motivation and goal (that isn't tied to her love interest), and changes throughout the story. That's not to say moe heroines can't have that (Taiga in Toradora! does, for instance), but in the worst moe shows, fully realized characters are discarded in favor of a checklist of traits otaku consider attractive. The problem isn't that they're cute, the problem is there's nothing to them other than that.

First, I hate the way that this show acts like it is the FIRST EVER "clever" deconstruction of the magical girl genre. I hate the way that this show is consistently praised as being a totes original deconstruction of the magical girl genre.

[...]

The only thing new that Madoka Magica has brought to the table is upping the gore and violence factor, which as anyone who reads Western comics and is sick of grimdarkviolent storylines being mistaken for being "more grown-up" content can tell you, is not the way to make you cartoon show more mature.

If Madoka Magica is meant to deconstruct the notion that magic can be empowering to little girls, who exactly is this message aimed at? (The answer: Adult men. Madoka Magica is absolutely not being promoted in any media outlets targeted towards girls or women. It's being promoted strictly to an adult male audience.)

[...]

If the show is intended as a general "magic can be false empowerment" message separate from a deconstruction of magical girl empowerment specifically, then that again brings us around to the question of why the creative staff thought that the best way to convey this message was to show a bunch of vulnerable moe little girls being tortured and terrified week after week in a show that is aggressively marketed toward an adult male audience in the first place. (Answer: Because fanservice, that's why.)

This. This is why I can't stand Madoka Magica. It's not that I don't like the idea of deconstructing the magical girl genre period - in case that still needs to be clarified for anybody - but it's just that Madoka Magica is DOIN IT WRONG.

I think both the East and the West have issues with sexism, which show up in their animated shows/movies.

...Me: Moe at it's very core is based on infantilizing female characters...
So yeah, I see moe as hella sexist...

But moe 2D girls have nothing to do with 3D girls.

IMHO, saying that moe is related to sexism is like saying that old Looney Toons cartoons encourage violence...both are clearly a cartoon-ish fantasy without relation to reality.