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Chicks On Anime - Fan Fiction (Part 2)


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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 3904
Location: CO
PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 4:58 pm Reply with quote
fuuma_monou wrote:
CCSYueh wrote:


Anime World Order wrote:

Ed Chavez is absolutely right about Shonen Jump after about 1987. What's been running in that magazine for the past 20+ years is by and large not "shonen." It's "neo-shonen" since they're specifically engineered to appeal to female readers too. The Shonen Jump tables at Comiket you mentioned being constantly swarmed almost entirely by girls is proof. But where Ed and I potentially differ is that I'm not saying neo-shonen is intrinsically inferior to shonen. I am just saying that the spirit embodied by Hitman Reborn is not the same spirit embodied by Violence Jack or Fist of the North Star.


You ARE a misogynist believing that.


Funny, I thought misogyny involved stuff like female infanticide. You know, outright hatred of the female sex, rather than just sexism against women. And I'm not sure the passage you quoted even qualifies as sexist. Mind my litmus test is "Would Dave Sim say this?"


I disagree with both of you.

First off, misogyny doesn't necessarily have to literally mean a hatred of women. You could pull up all the definitions you want to, but the fact is that modern usage of the word has expanded the definition to also mean prejudice against women, or espousing views that could be harmful to women, like expecting them to stay in the kitchen or to birth children, etc. One could be a womanizer, and yet still be labeled as a misogynist.

That having been said.... I don't think what AWO said was misogynistic at all. There is a distinct difference between the shonen of old, and current shonen-- and it's something that is paralleled in American pop culture. The 80s were about the WAR HUH manly archetype. The shonen man of today is more sensitive and... prettier, really, because it appeals to a female audience.

It's just marketing.
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 5:03 pm Reply with quote
SakechanBD wrote:

I disagree, but because of a different reason. The United States is really one of the few educated countries in the world whose citizens don't really know about foreign matters and history. Hell, a big chunk of American-born citizens probably don't even know who the current Secretary of State is. Just because we're not expected to know every historical figure from France in our schooling system doesn't mean that French children don't know historical figures from our past.

That's the nature of our citizens, though. I bet almost every French citizen knows who's running for US president, but you couldn't find even 50% of this country who knows who's running their country.

That's a departure from the "what is fame?" discussion, so I apologize, but I wanted to throw my thoughts in there.


I understand your points, and rather than rehashing what Goodpenguin stated in response I will say that I agree with his/her assessment on the subject and add that I still stand by my choice of using Abraham Lincoln as an example, specifically because my argument was that no one outside of the US should be required or expected to know who he was, nor would I ever hold it against anyone outside of this country for not knowing who he was. I think my problem with your argument is that it implies that people should be required to learn things about other countries' histories whether or not they have any direct connection to those countries. I don't agree. It is nice if they do, certainly, and potentially helpful in directly relating to people of other countries when knowledge is shared, but I really don't think the folks of a country that has no access to the internet, television, and/or no direct connection to the US of any sort should be expected to know who one of our presidents was.

When I talked about "fame," and this is not in specific reference to anything you have said, SakechanBD, I was making the argument that "fame" only extends as far as the "community" in which the "famed" individual resides. When the community is large, of course there are going to be a lot of people who know about that person, but when a community is small, like fan fiction fandoms are, the number of people who would be expected to know an individual is going to be small. The point I was trying to make, before this turned into a tangent about my use of Abraham Lincoln as an example, was that it does not negate the fact that a person is "famous" when the community they are "famous" in is very small. The word "fame" does not imply or require a community to be of a certain size. I admit that a lot of people know who Abraham Lincoln was (a whole lot of people), but even the great Honest Abe isn't going to be known everywhere by everyone. I don't think that is an innaccurate statement in the least.
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Sarahtdl



Joined: 07 Nov 2005
Posts: 9
Location: Springfield, Ma
PostPosted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 10:44 am Reply with quote
Just one woman’s opinions:

Fanfiction is fun and fine to do as an exercise in creative writing. However, I have never understood the urge to stick with it as the ONLY form of your writing. Really, I did it as a teen to develop my writing style and have some fun, and then moved onto my own original work. (I have on occasion picked it up again as an adult for fun, but it is by fan not the majority of what I write.)

I do find that it can be a great outlet for beginning writers. I teach workshops on it at conventions, and at the library I work at including some basic etiquette and methods.

I however always say that if an author/creator of the source material objects to fanfiction, or a type of fanfiction (for example, Lucas has said he doesn’t care about people writing star wars fanfic, but he asks that they don’t do sexually based fics) that as a fan of the original work that the creator must ALWAYS be respected. If someone is repulsed by their characters in Slash, don’t do it. If you still must write the story, write it in a notebook and pass it around to your likeminded friends I guess, but to really respect the work and its creator, you must respect their wishes even if you don’t agree with them. I don’t believe fanfiction that is against a creators wishes should be publicly posted.


Just my two cents.
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Cait



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 3:54 pm Reply with quote
Sarahtdl wrote:
Just one woman’s opinions:

Fanfiction is fun and fine to do as an exercise in creative writing. However, I have never understood the urge to stick with it as the ONLY form of your writing. Really, I did it as a teen to develop my writing style and have some fun, and then moved onto my own original work. (I have on occasion picked it up again as an adult for fun, but it is by fan not the majority of what I write.)

I do find that it can be a great outlet for beginning writers. I teach workshops on it at conventions, and at the library I work at including some basic etiquette and methods.

I however always say that if an author/creator of the source material objects to fanfiction, or a type of fanfiction (for example, Lucas has said he doesn’t care about people writing star wars fanfic, but he asks that they don’t do sexually based fics) that as a fan of the original work that the creator must ALWAYS be respected. If someone is repulsed by their characters in Slash, don’t do it. If you still must write the story, write it in a notebook and pass it around to your likeminded friends I guess, but to really respect the work and its creator, you must respect their wishes even if you don’t agree with them. I don’t believe fanfiction that is against a creators wishes should be publicly posted.


Just my two cents.


Hi, Sarah. I agree with you to a point. As far as being a "writer" is concerned, fan fiction can be a great stepping stone, particularly as it allows a writer with little experience to bypass some of the more complicated functions of being a creator (ie, creating characters and backstories) so that they can hone their writing skills. And you're right, at some point these people need to stop using writing as a "crutch" and move on to their own characters and their own plots.

However, for a lot of people fan fiction is a hobby, like bowling or softball can be hobbies. I don't think anyone expects a person to "go pro" because they can play a game well on the weekends. These people already have careers that they have devoted their lives to and use their free time to do something they enjoy. Once something becomes a "job" some of the "fun" of it will invariably die as an individual is no longer doing it for himself, but under the employ and/or with the expectations of someone else.

I write fan fiction and I am 28 years old. I have a four year college degree with which I perform a job that is a career that has nothing to do with the art of writing. I write fan fiction in my free time (what little of it I actually have these days) for fun. I don't really have much of an interest in writing original fiction at this time, and even if I did I would probably still want to write just as much fan fiction as a hobby as I do now (time permitting, of course).

Many mangaka started out drawing doujinshi (fan comics) and progressed to professional writing. However, many of them still draw doujinshi in their free time (perhaps more commonly among BL mangaka, which might be saying something about the BL genre of professional manga that is a whole other discussion), so I would argue that the fan mentality, the one that draws people to writing fan fiction in the first place, does not necessarily disappear when a person goes professional. Perhaps they will devote their career time to the art of writing their own original work, but going back to "being a fan" as a hobby doesn't need to be abandoned.

I'll also argue, and this does not necessarily relate to your post, that creative writing is not the only form of writing a person can hone through fan fiction. There are a plethora of careers in writing that do not involve being a "creator." Editors, proofreaders, English teachers, etc. involve knowlege of the skills of writing, but do not require that a person create their own stories or characters.

EDIT: On the subject of the will of the original creator I completely 100% agree with you. It is simply disrespectful to completely ignore the requests of the creator of a work a person claims to admire. Copyright laws exist because they recognize the rights of creators of intellectual property. People should be grateful when creators are open to others using their creations without permission, not develop some selfish sense of entitlement to use someone else's ideas without permission however they like.
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