Sus Sus Sus: Sus sus sus sus, sus sus sus

 Srsly?

何だFUCKがお前のJLPTレベルのか,ヤDORK。。。
Get literal with that, ya 馬鹿ck suckers.

I wrote this without an outline.
It's far too long and not an easy read.
This will not be over quickly.  You will not enjoy this.

Treat all links as NSFW. They aren't all that but I'm not labeling every single one.

So weeaboos are losing their shit because someone did a good job of translation and not transliteration in an anime.  The catalyst of course is Nagatoro: They used the words "sus" ...so totally sus to do that in such a sus way.

Things to suss out
First thing, is first: Translation is not Transliteration.  They are different things that's why they have different words.  It is also not Interpretation either because anyone who has had to do that in real-time (especially in a Japanese-English dynamic where one is super explicit and the other is so implicit that it's almost as important to mention the not-mentioned), the purpose is to get the point across, not to give a vocabulary lesson.  There are so many instances of the intent of a statement being more important than the separate literal definition of each word that makes it up.  Context plays more of a role in effective translation than dictionary definitions. 

I'm not even just talking about the absurd examples of translating "hot dog" into "heated canine."   Actually... let's talk about that:  Think about "hot dog" for a moment and the realize:
It's a noun: A food item that one Nathan's brand is famous for, also refereed to as a tube steak, or red-hot, the physical shape of which has lead to a connection in Modern English to serve as a conduit between "someone from Vienna" Weiner, and Penis, but not someone from Frankfurt "Frankfurter" (oh we'll get back to that).  And red-hot is so dated that it's instinctive definition is no longer a meat product but if you are Gen X-Y it's candy and for Zoomers is half of something that means "gossipy-shit" ...unless you're in Australia, where it means something mad different. 
It's a verb:  If someone is "hot dogging" they aren't in the process of manufacturing or preparing hot dogs.  They are also not heating up an actual dog.  It usually means they are showing off, but not just showing off, they are showing off with an unnecessary significant risk. Hot dogging causes you crash your B-52 into the ground killing everyone on it including that one poor bastard in the back who had no idea what was going on. No one who speaks English is going to have trouble with that.  Now try it in Mongolian... yeah, you're gonna be using different words that are not food related.
It's an adjective: If a person is called a "hot dog" they are not being called a food item, or a heated canine.  A dated equivalent could be "rascal" but if you use that in dialogue for a character that is known for overuse of contemporary slang, it's not going to be a good fit, and you might go with "drippin stan... not gucci" RAWRXD.  Either way, the trans-literal accepted  definition of food-item or the absolute-literal definition of heated-canine do not apply.

Om nom nom

Remember when I mentioned we'll get back to Frankfurters, penises, and hot dogs?  Well one sweet Transvestite from Transsexual Transylvania, has a musical number in a certain movie where the line is "you're a hot-dog, but you'd better not try to hurt her, Frank Furter" (and this line is even preambled by a reference to mustard).  Don't get hot and flustered, but translating this into another language while somehow trying to preserve the literal meaning of hot dog as both food-item and adjective for a type of person, and a cultural double entendre (name of character + reference to Frankenstein), while maintaining the tacit double meanings implied by the lyrics that relies on the audience already being familiar with the entire linguistic matrix of interconnected values, AND keeping whatever the final product is on-tempo with the actual song it's in ...well it's just not possible if your goal is complete preservation of exclusively literal meanings that an ESL student would be familiar with recently having learned.  ...I told you not to get hot and flustered, here use this.

ソーセージを口の入れてほしい？
Si, verdad.

I once was translating curriculum materials for a Graduate Level course regarding inter-organizational communication and one of the sessions focused on the film "12 Angry Men" (the Peter Fonda one, not the later one).  If you haven't seen that movie, go watch it.  Come back to this spot right here: -THIS SPOT RIGHT HERE-  ...there ya go.  Now, let's consider Juror #12's  line; "let's put this out on the stoop and see if the cat licks it up."  It's not just an English Language thing, it's such a New York thing that students with native-level abilities from not where I am from were having trouble with it. To simply translate that literally, would be just so worthless. Furthermore, in the film as dialogue, the line is meant to indicate a character who has a very significant lack of confidence in their ideas, for no rational reason. It implies that the Mad-Men bosses he works for are such mean bastards that they've worn him down to nothing but barely functioning self-doubt.  I had to somehow come up with a line in both Japanese and Mandarin which gets his entire point across and fits into the rest of the scene, uses an obfuscating reference that makes sense to the target audience, and I had less than an hour to do it. Thankfully I know a Chinese-Italian-American 3rd generation NYC family that I messaged and they gave me something to work with that would at least make sense to ABCs and it went from there.  Japanese was more difficult and I don't remember what I put because this was in 2010.  I'm sure there must be existing translations out there but I didn't have them handy and I had from 1am to 8am to get the entire lesson done not just that part.

So when someone runs a contemporary slang equivalent like "sus" up the flag pole to see who salutes it, the only people who are going to be upset are those who have just attained the level of novice understanding in terms of the cultural and linguistic nuances-Japanese, a source of organic gamification points within the fandom and then end up feeling de-valued because they don't see the result they themselves expect. 

Translation is about getting as much of the audience as possible to do the above concept.
It's not about reinforcing your sense of self importance, audience member. The professional translator has no time for that, sorry for the cognitive dissonance.

Historical History:
Anime fandom is particularly sensitive to translation irregularities.  From TV stations making last minute changes because of no-no words that just can't be on a kids show and since all animation is a kids show; boom censoring; to the war-crimes of Carl Macek just making up shit regardless of what the original work was about, anime was too often defaced by poor translation or deliberately malicious action.  Knowing that such things have happened, and that they detract from the original intent of the storytelling as entertainment that appeals to them, anime consumers have almost always reacted negatively to such things, especially when it is discovered after the fact.  I once got in an almost knock-down drag out trying to explain to a former writer/director for Bucky O'Hare and Rambo: The Force of Freedom, that no; doing things the old way to an anime and just changing names and inserting dialogue where there wasn't any was so not OK, especially since viewers could switch between both languages with the push of a button on a DVD remote. I wasn't allowed back in the studio for a while despite doing the "that's not my job but the boomers are making me do it anyway" dialogue translation and rewrites.

So fans are rightfully touchy, which is why one sees this subject get bought up every time a new generation of fans thinks they're the ones who discovered anime.  But not always rightfully correct.  There's a good reason localization is now thought of as a necessity, and with both subtitled and dubbed versions not being separate packaged media any more, there is no cost risk at all.  Since like there used to be such risk of buying a very expensive "bad dub" or sub job, fans would be steadfastly cautious to buy what they wanted doing as much research as was possible.  If you were lucky, your local video rental place had a big anime selection maintained by a serious otaku that would only order the subbed versions.

These days now literally more easy to find in the Cowboy Bebop universe than real life.

Subtitled versions could get away with less localization sometimes by using on-screen notes.  Famous example being the "Natta de Cocoa" scene in Yugen Kaisha, which really liked to play the Japanese homonym double meaning joke on the audience (I mean 幽幻怪社 ...it's in the title ffs).  Can't always do that with subtitles let alone dubs that are gonna go on TV.   A little leeway is needed and expected.

Do you really want both the written manga and English voice cast anime lines to call her "Bunny" every time?  "Usagi" sounds better to your non-Japanese linguistic sensibilities doesn't it...?  Mixxzine, I'm lookin at you...


Loss of Status Reaction and Loss Aversion Psychology:
If you go through the fandom hard enough and young enough, you will have a phase where this whole new world opens up to you and you all of a sudden gain an understanding and nomenclature of a semi-cloistered group.  "Normies" all of a sudden doesn't include you anymore and you have something that sets you apart.  That something has value.  It can be seen with the evolution of hip-hop lyrics into what marketing suits now call urban vernacular, and it can be seen with otaku as well.  It's that moment when you've heard enough words you know what they usually mean but not always.  So these fans end up thinking that when a wife calls a husband "anata~" it should only be translated as "oh, you" and not sugarpie, muffin, sweetness, honeybun, puddin', darling... light of my life... even though those terms are actually more accurate in conveying the intended meaning most of the time in that context.  The "spectrum" (yes that spectrum) comes into play here as well, because "implied meaning" can be a stumbling block for some people. Such things should not be dismissed.  But imma not go into it anyway (this is gonna be tl;dr as it is).

So in situations like this, all of a sudden here comes something to take away that value.  To tell a person that what they thought they knew is not an entire book, but just that single page in the beginning with nothing written on it, which (if removed) has a new zero effect on the quantitative or qualitative value of its contents. The position they believed themselves to be in is thrown into sharp releif from the light of an elevation that has emerged from so far up the hierarchy.   What is lost may not be tangible but the feelings it creates are very real.  Furthermore, to have to face that realization because of a causal factor created by someone who has a more adept skill-set than said fan, fulfillment not only a sense of loss, but a sense of lose by malice, something stolen... something taken they were powerless to prevent. That moment when the guailo with the yee-haw accent responds in perfect Chinese to a conversation between 2 other people, or when the little Korean girl spits perfect DR Spanish to some cabron who's running his mouth about her, thinking she doesn't know what he's saying (only in New York), that instant impact of the loss  of anonymity and feeling exposed is off the same tree as what the anime thing does when something is localized by someone who knows Japanese context better than the audience.  It's like when your skill set doesn't help you.  When your collectables appraise for less than what you originally paid for them... this feeling lives in that triggering of a status loss, and the inability to mitigate it can lead to things like little nuggets of frustration, aggression, withdrawal, depression, or scapegoating.  Loss aversion is a fear reaction.  In extreme cases, it can have damaging effects, even on people who you might not empathize with.

This guy is dealing with some shit.

It is real to someone who feels real reactions to things.
Don't always let your first reaction be to simply laugh at someone in that situation.  Doing that makes you feel better at their expense.  Star Trek actually depicted an extreme example of this loss reaction. Like all of DS-9, this story arch started good and then ended stupid as hell.

Not every encounter with this phenomenon goes so off the rails into actual psychosis.  A lot of it leads to bickering about the "wrong" way things were done and an irrational vortex of all the logical fallacies by those who are angered but have no recourse of logical argument.  The demands to remove that "wrong" way which has caused this sense of value loss are simply justified with "because, reasons!" or something to that effect.  If left to continue, it ends up causing intense feelings to the point where the id takes a larger share of control. A reaction idiotique so to speak. Their thought processes and existing cognitive structures are then thrown into the spotlight when someone gets intense and... what... what in the non-visible spectrum of ALL the fuck...

@Locksneedfartin: A thing that happened.

マジで verità.

What has been see can not be unseen:
Wow.  OK, so Nagatoro is gonna be known for not just having sus in the translation, but now for the way this uber-chud who either is a total garbage human, or was just born in a different multiverse that hat it's big-bang 14 years later than we did and just woke up here with bad trolling skills in this one thinking the year is 2007 without noticing.  Yes, (former) Twittererererer @Locksneedfartin managed to just create a Charge of the Light Brigade into chuderry chud-ness of chudding, so hard that it made it to Know Your Meme 24 hours after it happened.  It took no time at all for this wackadoo to start soapboxing about MAGA issues like transphobic shit and just being totally racist because apparently they think that's how the world works and anything else is so wrong that the other people against it are all deliberately bad-stoopede.  When people get worked up, their "don't say the quiet part out loud" bigotry cloaking device malfunctions and we get this:

How to lose your twitter account in MAGA easy steps

Twitter was always a dumpster fire, but the color of the smoke is an indicator of what the toxicity is and where it's coming from at any given moment.  Somehow it's worked its way into fandom and it's time to address that. This person, and a whole bunch of others who didn't know a single correct thing about what translation, localization, slang, context, licensing, Japanese language, sus, scrub, and other words actually have established histories, end up going fundamental when their brains short circuit in a fit of rage-lag. 

The whole insane thing that ended with this, shows this dorkoff knows nothing about Japan, Japanese, Translation, Localization, Word Origins, or how not to be a scumbag.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!
There really is no more to say about this person that hasn't already been said.  What needs to be asked, is how do so many, out of a generation that should know better, end up nodding their heads and approving of stuff like this and liking it.  It's not really because this fandom attracts that kin of demographic, or creates incubators for such ideas to gestate and ferment to toxicity.  It's the much larger social, cultural, and economic environment that has come to dominate us all (people who live on planet money, excluded of course).  I sure as hell don't want to defend this guy but I also think it's important to study what the fuck is going on with these people.  I think it's important because, as mentioned, the overall macro environment is the largest causal factor in this, and though we can close the roof of the stadium, the game is still going on. So yes, once the roof is closed attention can be focused on the doors and what comes through them, but that's not an easy thing to do or maintain.  This shit is sneaky and sometimes people who follow these philosophies genuinely think they themselves aren't being harmful, so confrontational methods can end up being counter-productive and actually intensify what one seeks to stop. Not this time though.  This one was... I still don't know what that was other than terrible.

There are so many things I still want to cover now, but if you're still reading at this point, congratulations, you don't exist because no one is gonna read this far.  Mitigation without malice is too often treated as some sort of tacit support for what is deemed the explicit problem, even though it is not.  So Someone's still gonna think I'm defending this @Lockneedfartin fuckwad who needs a pencil shoved up the diickholle and then broken off in there.   I'm not, so it should be obvious.

Getting back to the plethora of perplexing panorama panoply:
This is the beginning of a contracting phase of fandom and ipso-facto the domestic and international market for all otaku related things. Things will get worse before they get better.  For this kind of thing, self regulation is not easy when it's bottom-up, but top-down is nothing but a nightmare scenario.  And it's only one of several challenges on the horizon (oh you better believe I already have another post in the works already about awful shit happening to anime fandom). This will not be over quickly.  You will not enjoy this. 

Oh and since this Locksneedfartin shitstain seems like a badge-bunny:



BLM
ACAB

-

Australian Senator Wants Government to Ban More Anime and Manga

Australia, still an enemy of free thought.

Second time we've used this.

Anyone who has seen the fine documentary series Housos, knows that Australia is what happens when a bunch of cognitively dysfunctional weirdos get trapped on an island full of spiders and snakes, surrounded by sharks and murder-snails.  From this Southern Hemisphere version of England with more land and on-fire-ness to it, comes a flash in the pan news tidbit:

Yes, this nonsense again.

So Australian Senator Stirling Griff (yes that's a real name of a person, not a fictional character... somehow), wants literally every single anime and manga ever, inspected by the government for "child exploitation" and subsequently banned in the country if it does not fit some existing standard as defined by said government.  Apparently Mr Griff saw some anime with bouncy boobies and tighty-whities and is mad about it, probably because it makes him feel like his pants are shrinking.  The entity responsible for government censorship in Australia, which is officially called the Australian Classification Board, has since responded with what could be paraphrased as "you don't tell me what to do, now go fuck yourself" essentially.  They already have a government censorship rubric in place for everything and don't need to create a special one for anime or manga.  Making this idea more or less dead in the water.  Common sense should prevail, as a drawing of "child exploitation" is no more evidence of an actual crime than a drawing of Conan the Barbarian chopping someone's head off constitutes evidence of murder.

Nonsense as such is but met with nonsense.

Well that should be it right?  One politician has a stupid idea that up and disappears like a fart in the wind.  Senator Silver Trench will go pout in the corner and that will be it right?  Probably, but like those instances where only the last of the redundancies avoids total disaster, so too does this small event illuminate the tenuous nature of a global market for art and entertainment properties.  One where one government can influence sales and license valuations for a global property, to a degree based on their own market size. 

It's happening in more than just the one place everyone immediately thinks of.

When discussing government censorship of entertainment media and art, the usual suspects always spring to mind, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Thailand, Russia, Singapore, all that.  But in reality, the government regulation of creative output is embraced by countries which tout their self-celebrated socially progressive atmospheres such as Germany, U.K., Canada, France, Holland, Australia, and so on.  But these countries have a long history of maintaining actual thought-police and continue to do so while performing the mental gymnastics required to label them as positive entities which benefit society.  They justify their actions in state enforced censorship by arguing they are simply enabling the greater good but in reality are just another way to implement a what we say goes socio-cultural policy.

We're here to help.

As mentioned, Australia being one of England's side-projects, and as England  loves doing this, so too is like Australia to blindly parrot such thinking.  What is somehow second nature to these quazi Euro or Dynastic modes of thinking, are extraordinarily repugnant to Americans. So much so that when the USA was forming an absolute set of laws just after making England go away by shooting their army guys in the face, the very first one was a law expressly forbidding the government from legally regulating written works in any way, and through case law has been extended to art, music, performance, and software.  Actually if you look at the U.S. Bill of Rights, Amendments 1-8 can basically just be called "shit the English did that is not allowed anymore."  And #1 is a bit crowded, but government censorship is in there.  The continued strong aversion to such regulation, is cemented in American cultural identity and jurisprudence, through lots and lots of Supreme Court case law.  It is still seen as a very relevant subject today, because throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, it was often American cultural and literary output that has been the target of such government suppression efforts; Don't wanna participate in the SS book burning?  Too bad, do it or we shoot you.  Get caught with "Amerikanski rock and roll album" behind the Iron Curtain?  Time for re-education in Siberia.  That book about Robert Ingersoll and modern Atheism?  Off with your head you dirty kuffar!  Looking at that wrong American website in China?  To the Laogai you go for your state sponsored re-education.   Hell, if Salmon Rushdie tried to publish The Satanic Verses today, the UK would probably go crazy trying to ban the thing and lock him up for "hate speech" or whatever it is they're calling it now.  No wonder he moved to New York.




In Australia, this is a senior respected member of the government keeping your woke eyes and ears safe from all the evil manga and anime drawings.  It's ok, he knows what's best for you.
This ongoing tension has lead to the one important thing.  No other country has explicit prohibitions against the government regulation of any artistic or entertainment content.  Those MPAA or ESRB ratings?  They come from private organizations and they are not legally binding.  The local theater near me does not enforce those ratings and rather makes their own decisions about age restrictions if any, breaking no law.  That simply could not happen in Australia, or any other country out there. 

So this happens in English speaking markets, as well as other markets all over the world except for one country... 'Murika!  Making the USA the only vestige of truly free speech and expression.  Where all incarnations and manifestations of free-thought and expression are free to participate in the environment, where they either thrive or become obsolete through that participation.  For freedom of art and expression (including commercial media) in the USA it's sink or swim, in the rest of the world it's "Pool's Closed" because we say so.

If government censorship based on localized sensibilities continues to grow unabated through actions such as this, an international market for entertainment properties will become more and more impossible.  It would become a mission of of pleasing "all of the countries, all of the time" which is such an insurmountable prospect, that potential licensors would not even entertain purchasing such assets.   What would be the point of licensing Keijo if some government goon can threaten you with criminal prosecution for publishing it?  Anime goes from being a global multi-billion dollar business (yes, I'm counting Pokemon) back to a localized phenomenon traded with fans using legal or illegal means depending on what the government has decided you can dare to have access to.  Australia should just put the kangaroos in charge at this point.  They would do a better job running the place.

I Luvz Mah Gun... Luvs Mah Gun! Guns and their role in entertainment media.

Well, if I had one I'd love her... her name would be Alligator.

So Las Vegas happened.  Yeah that was a thing.  Although Alex Jones is already screaming "false flag" because, of course he is, it won't take long for other people who actually live on planet Earth to start looking at the idea of guns, the ownership of guns, the use of guns, and the availability of Guns.  But in all that, there is going to be one term that keeps getting mentioned I'm sure; "Gun-Culture" and the thing is, you can't really have that without the need to include the concept of "guns-in-culture" along with it.

 

Pay attention.  This is very important.
I actually just realized she's got one eye totally covered and the other one 90% closed... how she gonna hit anything like that?

I think everyone who grew up in the 80's or 90's knows that one kid who's mom wouldn't let them play with any type of toy gun or gun-like object and if she caught them watching The A-Team there would be hell to pay.  These were the days of Dr. Spockian absolutisms of hippy-dippy child rearing and Mel Leveneish notions that literally everything in the environment a young person is in will have some sort of indelible impact on someone growing up, even if it is an abstract concept.  Yep, the baby boomers believed that if you just shielded your child from anything negative, then they would grow up to be perfect little conformers to your specific set of values.  ...You go ask the Mormons how well that actually works.  One of the first aspects of popular entertainment this phenomenon was that moment when you realize G.I. Joe went from being good to sucking ass.

 

Real guns and explosions on the left... this ridiculousness and "lasers" that move so slow you can dodge them on the right.

But you kept watching it... and you know why.

Yeah, you know why

Fast-forward to post-Columbine and all of a sudden it's; Leather duster jackets are potential warning signhs!  Mortal Kombat did this, quick get Hillary Clinton and Captain Kangaroo (no seriously he was a part of that insane shit) they will ban them there vidja games!  Schools need more security than airports and every student is guilty until proven innocent!  Marylin Manson!  ZERO TOLERANCE!  ...oh and people shouldn't keep loaded guns where victims of prolonged sanctioned bullying who may show signs of mental illness can get them  ...ya know, just maybe.

Did entertainment media get less violent as a result?  I'd say not really.  What happened was the kind of person who was "allowed" access to it was changed.  And it was based on age.  The generation that said "never trust anyone over 30,"  smoked weed in public but then embraced the war on drugs, and would gladly give a blowjob to Holden Caulfield because he was just the best, does a 180.  All of a sudden there was now a wrong kind of music.  A wrong kind of clothing style.  A wrong kind of media entertainment.  And they are the ones who knew everything (I mean they totally changed the world, man!) so you will obey them and do what they say.  They declared a straight up war on cultural evolution.  A war they would eventually lose, in part thanks to anime and manga being so out there and so under the radar and shared through technology they did not understand, that they didn't know they were supposed to hate it until it was too late.  Even before you could download anything, in my college anime club running days I had a VHS trading network that reached from Canada to Bolivia and it was all arranged online (yes I am that old).  But the "guns-in-culture" problem popped up in that "zero-tolerance" zealotry.  So kids; Bring a 1 inch plastic accessory gun held by an action figure to school?  Oh, you criminal scum!  Wear a clip in your hair that might have a gun-like image as part of it?  You're aiding terrorism!  Bite a pop-tart in the shape of a gun?  IT'S CARLOS THE JACKAL!  And Big Brother is always watching.  Even when you think he isn't.  That has unfortunately more or less continued and will probably keep happening for another 10 years until the kids who ended up on the business end of that retarded retardedness get their hands on the wheel.

If you are under 18 in America today, you have no rights.  ...sorry kids

So, like I said, now Las Vegas happened.  And what are we going to get?  First we're going to get people asking for motive, and the NRA going into full head-up-ass damage control mode.  Some people are going to say we should ban all guns, some people are going to say we should ban some kinds of guns, and some people will say from my cold dead hands.  The thing is, the weapon used in the video of the event which is widely circulating is clearly a fully automatic machine gun or sub-machine gun and those have been banned and prohibited for decades.... It is not one of these.  So what are you gonna do, give them super secret double probation banning or something?  Guns are a Constitutional issue and as such will take a Constitutional level action to change the question of availability.

*Edit as of 2017-10-08: I did not know what a bump-stock was when I wrote this and now I do know.  I also find that disconcerting.

Seriously if a Constitutional action can let some salty dried up cunts make this Constitutionally illegal in the USA for over a decade, then the gun thing is not impossible if that's what you want.  oooo language.  ...Hey, the sister blog of this one is called Pinky Mixology, you think I don't want to dig up Carrie Nation and piss on her dead body while her relatives have to watch on CCTV?   Anyway that means that one time, all three branches of the US Government once banned this because they thought it was too dangerous for America, while letting anyone buy one of these at a hardware store.  Yeah, nice one guys.

But actual Constitutional Legislation is not not what I am here to talk about.  What I am here to talk about is the entirely different universes that "gun otaku" live in between the USA and Japan.  In Japan, a gun-otaku may not even like anime, but loves a certain aspect of firearms, that being the engineering (in most cases... I am sure there a few weirdos out there that do sex-stuff regarding them).  But that's the engineering of every part, from the action to the aesthetics, so "looks cool" is a big part of why someone might favor a type of gun.  The thing is, gun-otaku in Japan really aren't considered dangerous because being a gun-otaku there is like being an F1-otaku here in the USA.  You are never going to own an F1 car (deal with it).  In Japan, thanks to one of the most intense firearm prohibition policies in the world, coupled with the geography of the country making enforcement of said policies highly effective, it is inconceivable that there would be a proliferation of firearms.  Not so much so in the USA, where you can go get one at Wal-Mart while you buy bananas and underpants, and then potentially modify them to have illegal rates of fire (the gun... not the underpants bananas).   So since anime are Japanese productions gun violence is treated something akin to wizard-magic in other American forms of entertainment.  A scenario so fantastic that it is unrealistic both in the idea that it could ever motivate someone to engage in such a thing for real, and in the way it is even portrayed as happening.

Annoyingly, this is not an actual thing that happens

So for Japanese audiences, in anime, guns might as well be light-sabers, because there is an equal chance of the average person getting their hands on either.   In the USA you get all into violent gun anime and then combine that with the fact that you can buy them from vending machines more or less, the impression is that you now pose a danger to public safety, just as much as that F1-otaku could if they actually got their hands on an F1 car and maybe decided to take it for a spin around the neighborhood.  And that makes guns, gun-otaku, and entertainment (anime included) with guns in it something that will be subject to such sensitivities now in the USA.  This could potentially cause a rift in the number of and type of anime that become licensed by companies here.  But I think such an effect would be minimal if it happened at all.

Whole new meaning now aint it...?

What are we going to see?  It is too early to tell.  Is it possible that people will become hostile to media that features the use of guns and all kinds of murdery murder even if it is clearly fiction?  Is Netflix never going to stream Smokin Aces again? (movie would have made a better anime anyway).  Are people under 18 going to be given even harsher punishments and treated like criminals for owning a copy of Gunslinger Girl or watching something like Kite?  Will just having an image of Upotte as the background on your pc get you abducted and sent to a "rehabilitation" camp when in reality all you wanted was a Pepsi (just one Pepsi), but your parents have bought into the fearvertizing of for-profit teen crisis programs that don't give a flying fuck how they keep their beds full?  Maybe it will happen.  I think because the guy who did it is apparently one himself, the baby boomers will do everything they can to point attention away from that fact, and whenever they need a scapegoat, the come for the millennials.  They are going to really need a scapegoat now, since this guy isn't around to talk, and so said scapegoat is going to be the information we consume.  It will be the entertainment media we seek out that the boomers do not, which they will culturally and politically denounce the heresy of, and those youngins who perpetuate its continued cultural consumption, are going to get treated like like they started the fucking Reichstag Fire.  Our generation doesn't have as much control of the steering wheel as we think we do (yeah, we have to do the boomers homework for them because they can barely work anything more than a calculator... but George McFly did Biff's homework all the time and who was runnin that school?  Wasn't Georgie). 

Oh read some history you idiots.

One foreseeable yet inevitable problem is that the ADD addled mind of most of us who exist in a world where not being able to stream a show for an hour because you're in another time zone or something will have you lose your shit, is that this will quickly develop into some gasoline on the Alt-Right vs Antifa mess we normies have to walk around in our everyday lives like compost piles no one had permission to set up in public.  And most of the people I know are going to say it's all the alt-right's fault because "the left" doesn't do the guns thing.   Well...  ya know.

Except when they totally do I guess. 

That bullshit between those two groups is what is going to be the sugar-in-the-gas-tank that derails any progression towards normal thought of how to proceed after this.  Cops will be edgy and then end up ruining (or ending) people's lives, and these two same poles of separate magnets will continue to push themselves further apart while the 24 hour news monster takes the rest of us just that much further with them.  The end result is going to be a bunch of nothing and then another even worse attack will happen.  Here terrorists, you want one, I'll give you one;

The NYC, subway.  A line with the newer cars you can move freely between. A team of 4 (but can be done with two) with two in the extreme front of the first car and two in extreme back the last.  Do this latter half of morning rush-hour, when the train is packed and wait a river crossing (ideal lines are 4/5, A/C, L, or F, they have the longest tunnels with curves that make them go slower... except the L, but when does that thing ever NOT move slow, ammiright?).  Wait for the train to get half way through and then have someone hit the emergency break.  That break takes 20 minutes to reset.  Once the train stops, both teams start shooting moving towards the center of the train.  Use 9mm semi-autos and carry extra magazines.  Make sure one person on the team keeps firing when the other has to reload (reloading is how they stopped Colin Ferguson).  You are not going to hit everyone so don't try, and don't fire too fast like the shooting up in the air scene in Point Break that's worthless.  You will most likely not have to worry about anyone else on the train who is armed because even if they are, gun-control laws in NYC mean it wouldn't be many people, cops drive to work because they don't actually live in NYC (sorry Staten Island doesn't count as NYC and everyone knows it) and on a rush-hour train, the panic that will immediately set in will have a stampede of people running away from you pushing, knocking down, or at least blocking, anyone who could stop you from continuing to fire.  Do this on a rainy day, so that people have umbrellas to trip over but also because you can wear large rain ponchos and no one will see what you have under there.  Make sure you get on early on the train line so you can get in position and pick a shitty neighborhood because they won't be doing bag searches there. Once you've done enough damage or run out of ammo you can ditch the ponchos and disappear into the panic and since you have an all new outfit on, no one will know it was you.  Do with with 6 people with 2 in the middle and holy shit!  ...most of you will probably get caught though.

There, I just gave you a freebie.   See?  That's what's gonna happen when these polarized idiot morons, in a country under a really shitty President who thinks playing golf is literally part of his job, prevent real things from getting done.   ...Jesus now that I go read that back that sounds like an insane and psychopathic...

Miss Dynamite.  Great series by Canadian writer, illustrator, cartoonist and all around artist of amazing amazingness, Sirkowski.

Oh wait... someone is at the door...

Oh shit... Well, wouldn't be the first time...  Seriously, it wouldn't.  If they send anyone I hope the cute one comes back.  Oh shit I just realized I totally fit "the profile" for this kind of thing too...  Goodnight Everybody.  Ah, they know I'm an f-ing joke.  Actually if they're reading this, they should be happy about it because I just gave them something they should have been worrying about anyway.
...wonder if they're hiring

Kya is a lesbian! Why does nobody tell me these things?

-
So I bought the Legend of Korra comic, and I haven't  read it yet... mostly because I've been spending all of my spare time really drunk, because I have once again lost every single ounce of ability to be happy about anything ever and I am contemplating suicide attempt #4  ...although if you get to #4 and still can't fucking do it, then you just must suck at everything.    I mean I could do it but I don't want to go splat off the roof and all the other options would be messy.  Living in NYC I have about as much a chance of buying a gun as I do of buying a space shuttle, so I'll just keep eating high-cholesterol foods and just wait for the inevitable.

Om nom nom nom.  Good lord I have a dark sense of humor.

So anyway my wifey reads the thing and I mention in passing that I thought Kya was pretty hot and she was like "oh well you wouldn't stand a chance she's a lesbian" and for some reason I actually felt disappointed.  Seriously, I've never felt that way before but I must have actually had a thing for Kya that I didn't even realize I had because it felt like it was such a "swing and a miss" moment I was just like ...uhhhhgg.   At least Kuvira doesn't mind getting a bit of hetero-action (if you told me she was off the table I would have just lost it).  It might be because they are just so intelligent and confident, which I very much dig, or you just know that either gay or straight Kya could teach you a thing or two about how to fuck like a pro. ...And it's definitely the choker + silver hair also. I mean I don't even think Bumi or Tenzin would mind at this point, she's a big girl she can make her own decisions ...like to want Poon and not D...  DAMMIT, I can't keep her on the waifu-list now!

So you doin' anything later or... or what? ;)

Why the fuck am I even bringing this up?   Because AMERICA.  No not monster trucks and guns (though that stuff is cool, I mean... you know it is), and not MAGA hats and flags (I am much more likely to burn a flag in protest than to wave one ...thank you Texas v Johnson), what I mean is that the United States of America is a diverse country, probably one of the most on the planet.  The limited history of the USA allows for legal limitations regarding what in other parts of the world are strictly protected cultural institutions.  The USA has no anti-blasphemy laws, you can't say that about Pakistan or Ireland.  The USA has no official language, you can't say that about China or Poland (or even Canada).  And although it wasn't always the case, the USA has no official race that people have to be in order to be citizens, you can't say that about Saudi Arabia, or Japan (seriously, Japan is awful about that kind of thing, go look it up). 

That means that although Japan makes most of the best anime, some of it isn't as relatable to American audiences as domestic American productions because there is simply less genuine diversity.  Everyone looks exactly the same.  (OMG he's turned total SJW holy shit!)  ...no.  What I mean is that no, there aren't zero examples of other people who are not Japanese, but have you ever thought about how many characters are supposed to be Japanese that you have actually been imagining as Caucasian this whole time?  Yeah... let that sink in.  So when a character is put in a Japanese anime that isn't assumptively Japanese, it is usually (not always) done in an exaggerated form to just scream at the audience "GAIJIN" or "GAY" or "WEIRDO" (of course there are definately some gay Japanese Weirdos out there... good for them)  or just exaggerate whatever they are going for.  Of course there are exceptions, Tokyo Godfathers, Gunsmith Cats, Cowboy Bebop...almost anything about WW II, all that, but those are exactly that... exceptions, not average occurrences.

 Yes I got to meet Kenichi Sonoda in Chicago in 1998 when I took him to the O'Hare ATC tower (remember kids, I used to be way cooler than you).  And he told me that neither of these two are in any way Japanese.

The same is true for LGBT characters. Not only do most anime out there telegraph the most stereotypical aspects of what people assume about LGBTQ people, they are super unapologetic about it. (I left out A-sexual and I guess all the other things to be... I don't know... people that have sex with alligators ...which is not animal abuse because if you are having sex with an alligator, that alligator is letting you do that, no two ways about it.  And do not search for "alligator sex" ok, remember when I warned you about giraffe-porn?)...   I mean, Tiger & Bunny was a cool show, but ...c'mon nobody acts like that.  OK I actually know someone who basically acts exactly like that (Daemon from the comic store was a huge muscular black dude, spoke like a valley-girl and was gay as a fairy *his words not mine* and I actually flirted with him when I was a freshman in high school just to get the employee discount... nothing ever happened, but I wonder how he's doing)  but T&B was still going over the top with the thing.

Except for the nails?

So coming back to why the fuck shit hell am I even mentioning any of this, is that there are now shows, movies, and books out there like Korra, and like the new Lego Elves series (yeah it's for kids, so people aren't going down on each other or dropping dead left and right like an episode of Game of Thrones) and even My Little Pony (seriously there is no way that Vinyl and Octavia are not an item) that have diverse characters in them that don't make a point of 4th wall obliterating exposition regarding the fact that they are who they are.  The not-making a big deal about it is what's cool.  Maybe it's just because I grew up in NYC and seeing 2 dudes kissing or playing strikebox with an interracial kid my age was no big deal, but with things being what they are today, you can't do enough to make sure that people understand how to avoid bigotry through collective experiences and not simply use pontification to get the point across.  American entertainment media is a powerful tool in that process.  And for fans of animation, it is important to remember that in the USA, it will be our domestic productions that have the largest and most significant impact in creating that environment.  ...Also probably Canada. ...With their stupid metric system.

Seriously, when some of our parents were alive, doing this was illegal.  There still needs to be a lot more social progress made out there, but I think it will be American media entertainment that makes the most effective impact on ensuring people exposed to it have their values solidified or their minds changed (probably depending on their age).

This... this is the worst thing I have written.  Not that the message is something I think is terrible, but I think this reads like a high school freshman's Livejournal or something equally retarded.  I used to be better at the word-making but I either have mid-stage mad cow disease or after all these years the  Wernicke-Korsakoff is finally kicking in.  But there is so much issue-fatigue out there that these issues can seem not even interesting to talk about anymore. And I get blowback.  Seriously, just this year alone I have been called sexist, alt-right, gun-nut, libtard, faggot, nationalist, white nationalist (because that makes a difference apparently), racist, communist, and some wackadoo sent me a message who was convinced I was part of an organization which used chem-trails for something.... dumbass, if I was, I'd be getting paid way more than I am now!  At least I wasn't putting it in the water to turn the frogs gay.  Stupid frog-metric system.  ...that's a thing, shut up.

Waifu Tourism: Using Japanese IP to market "Content Tourism"

Japan see the potential in Content Tourism; Government immediately starts doing it wrong.

Yeah I know they write "Contents Tourism" but they still can't get the whole R ≠ L half the time.

So what is Content Tourism and why are they putting it in a blender with Cool Japan and then just pouring it randomly all over the place?  Well apparently, it is in the hopes of increasing international tourism in Japan.  Content Tourism is simply capitalizing on people's desire to visit specific locations because said locations were featured in a particular work (novel, TV show, movie, youtube video, whatever), this is slightly different from historical tourism (civil war battlefields, Jack the Ripper crime scene walking tour), only in that the source material for the impetus behind undertaking content tourism is fictional.  Both try to attract visitors by providing an intangible value to their tourist activities, in this case access to places connected to things they find interesting.  Or tangible value depending what's available in the gift-shop.

I'd like one meth please.  Every fandom has meth.
Every. Fandom.

Japan, being a popular setting for many modern fictional works of popular culture, has no shortage of such locations, but has been sorely lacking in the ability to genuinely connect them to the "Content" of Content Tourism.  Yes, you may have loved Initial D but are you gonna go rent a Golf GTI or whatever and drive around Gunnma?  You might think Crayon ShinChan is hilarious but are you going to go wander around Saitama trying to just drink it all in? (Side-note, It's best just to never ever go wandering around Saitama, seriously, there be some strange things that happen there, arg).  So the conundrum is obvious perhaps, connect places with popular anime and you'll get your tourists looking when where that thing happened that time in their favorite anime.  How do we connect things?  Well technology, it's Japan how else are they going to approach this, you expect them to hire some kigurumi people to just walk around and wave at everyone?

It costs extra if you want to know which ones in this picture pee standing up.

Rather than go with that potential creepy-factor, the geniuses at JETRO have decided to Pokemon-GO the hell out of this idea.  Now you can use a mobile device to look around a specific site or building and see that hot little waifu of yours peaking out from behind a corner.  Maybe they'll even narrate self-guided tours or tell which nearby kissaten is going to tolerate your weaboo-speak that you think is Japanese.  This is an interesting add on and another way the government is going to spend money on a good idea, look back at in 4 years, and say... "well that didn't work either, so what's next?"  Well that "conundrum" I mentioned earlier is probably not the impediment in this scenario which is going to be the most immovable.  What is happening is something like the Yamato effect.  No not that Yamato.  More about this later.


So who is coming to dinner?
Well, according to the JNTO, the countries that send the most tourists by far are the countries in close proximity, so it's not surprising to see Korea, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong  be the top sources of international visitors.  But guess who's #5 on the list... that's right it's 'Murica, which so far is beating out Thailand.  This is also based on tourist visa numbers so US Armed Forces in Japan don't get included in these numbers.  You would expect Australia to have high numbers as well but they don't. And if you combine the USA with Canadian visitors, it outnumbered all visitors from the entire EU.  Outside of East Asia, North America is the next most important contributor to tourism numbers from Japan (combined figures 2012-2016 from the JNTO). 

So, are the increased foreign tourists going to be likely coming from countries that are already among the top contributors, or will they come from new sources that previously hadn't been significant sources?  Well that's the big question isn't it, but with geopolitical instability being what it is, Japan and Russia not becoming besties any time soon, and the growing competition out there, it looks like the man source is going to be an increase from the cash cows.  But that means there's going to be another problem.

The Yen is too damn high.

Exchange rates are something I have talked about before.  Or here too.  But it should be brought up again because the JPY and its stubborn immobility when it comes to rates against the USD and other currencies , it creates the perfect storm of antidote to any pull efforts that this program is going to have with many foreign  tourists who would find value in this type of Content Tourism.  They are all young, and underemployed, paid stagnant wages, have student debt that is astronomical, and have basically been all kinds of screwed.  If you're not a baby boomer, then you are statistically nowhere near the type of person that has the money or time to go an international vacation to one of the most expensive countries in the world.  Coincidentally if you're not a baby boomer, you're exactly the type of international tourist that this program is supposed to appeal to. 

It's just stuff you really already knew but now you can feel vindicated about it.

That means that this program is probably so much more effective on domestic tourism markets rather than foreign tourism (with the exception of the ROK, but ROK to Japan is like USA to Canada, it almost doesn't count as an international excursion).  Domestic Japanese will feel a great appeal for this more than foreign fans but more importantly will have the means to capitalize on this opportunity for a valuable experience.  They ill not be tethered by tourist schedules and the need to see things in order of importance.  Seriously, if you're from outside Japan and it's your first time in Kyoto, you will be going to Kiyomizu regardless of what this program has to offer.  If you live in Japan you might have seen it before or can come back to it.  If you live in Japan you won't be worried about international data charges on a wireless device or having to have a whole other one just for this to work.  If you live in Japan you would know that acting like an anime character in public is just as socially frowned upon as if you were in the USA and lived as if you were one of the characters in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  If you live in Japan, you are the market that this would bring the most value to.  But where are they taking it?  Where it doesn't belong.  If the Japanese government were serious about getting more foreign tourists to visit, they would focus on ways to make it affordable for a young American couple in their 20s who were born the same year as Otakon started, to be able to get there at all.  But that would mean falling out of love with Tokyo, and it's not really in keeping with Abenomics (whatever it happens to be this election).

So now, connecting that to the Yamato effect at this point should be easy. The Yamato was truly a magnificent piece of engineering.  It could shoot at you from so far away that the curvature of the earth itself prevented you from seeing it.  It had an elite crew, lots of power, and was the perfect flag ship for any navy... if it had been in the Battle of Jutland.  They had the best, most bad-ass Arceus they could have, and threw it at 10,001 Charmeleon who were all in a really bad mood.  Results were as to be expected.  So the Yamato effect is when you have something that's amazing at what it does, and do incongruous things with it.  Yes you could cut 9 feet of plywood with a premium Dremel router bit, but a table saw is going to do that better.  The same is happening here.  Japan has the best knife to win a knife fight with, and they're fighting someone with a gun they bought from a pawn shop.

May 2017 Recap

Kyoto State of Mind.
In case you missed it, Crunchyroll is streaming The Eccentric Family (Uchōten Kazoku) season 2.  They actually started doing this in April, but it's still a slow release so you haven't missed much.  There's something about this series that anyone who has lived in/near Kyoto is going to get all squee-squee nostalgic about.  Ditching class to just hang out around the shrines and parks around Kyoto creates a special feeling that just stays with you.  The Eccentric Family does quite a nice job capturing the Kyoto city-scape and overall vibe.

Some artistic license does in fact, take place.

If you haven't seen it at all, The Eccentric Family is a well made series that incorporates elements of Japanese mythology with the inter-personal politics and foibles of everyday life.  The characters have interesting faults and while not being completely free of trope-tastic deus ex machina plot navigation at times, it folds it in nicely and doesn't make investing your time in the series a painful experience.  So if you haven't yet, go on over to Crunchyroll and give it a look-see.


Anime-Style Novel Contest in Japan Bans Alternate Reality Stories and Teen Protagonists
I am ok with this.  You know why?  Because if they didn't then 90% of the entries would be that same shit.  Yes, Alck-Metal-Fullamist was great (the first time around), but we don't need to hear a million stories about how in a world where they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people, a 16 year old born without a left ass-cheek saves an entire planet of vaguely middle eastern weirdos with purple hair from magic-hitler.  Come up with something a bit more appealing to a broader audience.

 Full story here.

Remember when I wrote that thing about AMVs and it got everyone in a tizzy?  Of course you don't, fresh', it was 2011 and you were taking the SATs.  But what I did mention was how agonizing it was when certain trends become too prolific, and there was an unhealthy saturation of AMVs using the same Linkin Park song(s) to either Evangelion or that new Vampire Hunter D that came out at the time.  So, so, so many of those were standing between the audience and the actual good AMVs that it was just painful.  Such is the case here and now with writing.  It is the same shit over and over and over just with different hair colors and number of "senpai notice me!" moments.  If outside force is required to avoid that, then it should be applied.

Stories that can appeal to high-school aged consumers don't have to have any high school characters in them in order to have said appeal.  Furthermore, by not pigeon-holing the type of narrative, there are now other segments of the audience that can be potential consumers as well.  We can come back to Dragon Maid for this one because back in January I mentioned exactly that.  Dragon Maid is popular with the high school crowd, but it's about a fully functioning adult protagonist (and a dragon).  Someone well out of school, with a job, living on their own.  This means that people in that situation can relate to the story and characters as well, not just students who have that part of their lives to look forward to.  It's why it spans so many different segments out there.

Also... Boobies.

Being a writer means being part of an industry.  It's a business.  And as a business, you can't do it by writing what you want, you have to write what they want. In this case "they" being any potential customers willing to pay money to purchase said writings in whatever format.  When that matches up, then hey, good for you.  When it doesn't, suck it up and deal with it if you want to keep doing this.


AMAZON Japan to Buck Long Standing Tradition and Deal Directly with Publishers.
Amazon Japan has recently loosened its Wal-Mart like iron fist contract terms with distributors in terms of demanding the lowest price, thanks to some prodding/investigation by Japan's FTC.  Dropping the most favored nation clause, as it's called, means that Amazon can no longer make it a rule that every vendor must offer Amazon a lower price than any other e-commerce site they also sell to.  It is perhaps to offset this new dent in earnings forecasts that Amazon Japan is now pursuing a direct distribution strategy with Japanese publishing companies, rather than use 3rd party partners/vendors such as Nippon Shuppan Hanbai Inc.  With plans to order what are sure to be bestsellers straight from publishers, this will allow them to earn more while adhering to the SRP/Cover Price, or discounting it, or whatever it is they do; I don't know - I don't work there.

Look upon your doom, bitches.

Japanese industry and business culture has always loved a middle man.  So much so that there are giant companies in Japan providing middle-man services that have no market what so ever in countries like the United States or EU.  Take Creek & River Co. Ltd. for example, a placement agency for freelance creative people and studios, which places the freelancers at temp jobs with very large companies. It's basically a big Rolodex of freelancers with subscription fee.  In Japan, this is great because socially it's just unheard of to try and "cold contact" someone for something without a formal introduction by a mutually known party.  In the USA, all Procter and Gamble has to do is post something on a website and BANG, everyone with a BA in graphic design is firing their folios at them that they'll be able to pick someone in 24 hours.  C&Rs first foray into the U.S. market was mostly a disaster.

So Amazon is bring that "what do we need you for?" mentality to its Japanese operation, and it will probably be successful. Despite many aspects of Japanese society being in the technological dark ages (ATMs have "closed hours" and major entities still use fax machines a lot), people buying stuff online is widely accepted because another thing that's super popular in Japan is getting stuff delivered.



We know where you live!

Due to its serialized nature, manga will most likely be affected as much as other mediums such as novels and academic texts.  Rather the terms at which Amazon can offer e-reader versions of manga will have a far greater impact on how the market develops, and now that they will be dealing with large publishing companies, the pendulum may be able to swing in their favor.  We might see some very rapid manga releases as publishers hand off the legwork, and more importantly, the overhead cost of translation and distribution in non-Japanese markets to Amazon. 


Japan and ASEAN Release Joint Action Plan at the Intellectual Property Offices Symposium 2017, in Kanazawa.
The Seventh ASEAN-Japan Heads of Intellectual Property Offices Meeting took place this month in Kanazawa, resulting in the joint ASEAN-Japan 2017-2018 Intellectual Property Action Plan.  Before you get all excited and wonder why Anime News Network didn't plug this in the feed, keep in mind this was made by ASEAN industry heads and the JPO (that's "Japan Patent Office" in case you were wondering).  Sorry to pour ice water on your boners, but no, fansub bootlegs and those pirated copies of Pokemon Sun & Moon that got you perma-banned from Ninendo Store and bricked your DS were not on the agenda.  This was almost all exclusively to do with patent law, proprietary manufacturing processes, and chemical formulas.  Also the entire detailed plan isn't available (or it is and I'm just bad at searching for it) but the joint statement, which consists of lip service and farts of well wishes, is online should you care to waste 93 seconds of your life reading it (.pdf file).   However there is also the analytical data from the manufacturing sector - it's pretty detailed.  Good luck, ya weebos.

This is totally what every patent attorney in Japan looks like, I am an expert.

 
But don't go back to checking on that torrent just yet, some things are going to come out of this.  Such as;

• Although not an ASEAN member, China is slowly being dragged in to these kind of agreements as such activity increases and pressure mounts to stay in the game. Bringing China along for the ride by 2025 is a major step in quelling the "wild west" type of environment when it comes to IP over there and that will include entertainment IP as well as technological. 
• New and streamlined avenues for prosecution of infringements may be able to (in the future) allow protection of entertainment IP as well, meaning ASEAN countries will be seen as stronger more viable markets for licensing rather than just write-offs to be ignored.   Except Vietnam; they'd probably still censor the crap out of everything.  
• This is further strengthened by the listed objective of enhancement of collaboration between IP enforcement agencies, which will undoubtedly also enforce IP regulations on things like consumer products, well known brands, and entertainment.

Interestingly enough, there is a separate conference to deal with IP in terms of industrial databases computer codes, and AI software.  It's called  Intellectual Property System Study Group for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  With a title like that you know it's Japanese.



Wonder Woman: Gender-Segregated Screenings at Alamo Draft House.  ...oh here we go.
It's a thing that's happening.  As fun and or empowering as this seems to be, it also seems to be living on the border of "grey area" and "illegal" as well as in no way keeping with the actual spirit of gender equality (it's really the literal opposite).  Here in New York this may run afoul of some significant legal barriers, including Seidenberg v. McSorleys' Old Ale House (1970, United States District Court, Southern District, New York), which means having a liquor license comes with some very clear rules in terms of what you can and can't do regarding public accommodation.  Also what are they going to do about staff?  Is it going to be women only wait-staff?  Because if that is the case, the Department of Labor might take issue with Alamo also.

Yes, this stupid shit again.

I think my support for Wonder Woman as an IP (and an important one at that) has already been explicitly shown both here and here.  However, it is now tainted by the unfortunate social justice reaction which seems to be the same transparent and ridiculous strategy that was employed with the 2016 Ghostbusters.  Every single source of criticism of a business refusing to sell to members of the public because they are such-and-such a gender being instantly labeled as sexist, misogynist, white-nationalist (yes I actually saw that allegation out there regarding this mess) and then is just followed with screeching as loud as possible with no salient argument regarding favoring the exclusion of a specific gender from a licensed business.  I have seen some counterpoints which support doing these screenings, but I haven't seen a single one that seems to acknowledge what is actually happening.
1) Bars and clubs have "Ladies Nights"  or "Boy Nights" and that's legal.
Yes, because that's incentivization, not exclusion.  Specific groups, by gender in this case, are given incentives to patronize a business (which I still think is straight up sexist, but it's also so nebulous from a legal standpoint that it's not getting resolved any time soon that's for sure), but at no time can these businesses actually exclude admission to anyone based on gender during these or any other events.  That's kind of a game changer. Alamo isn't offering discounts or free food or anything else to women in general, they are simply saying "if you are gender such-and-such you will not be admitted/served" ...that's a very clear difference.
2) It's a non-profit fundraising event so they can do that. 
There's nothing that says something isn't subject to discrimination laws just because it's a non profit event or organization.  Hell, Otakon is an NPO, but do you think they'd be able to get away with having scheduled events for gender this one to the exclusion of gender that one?  The answer is no, they'd be breaking the law regarding public accommodation, and they really just shouldn't do it in principle.
3) But Alamo has classified these as private events, so they can exclude whoever they want. 
Can anyone come up to the box-office and buy a ticket if they are the gender that Alamo has decided to allow?  Yes?  Well then that's going to have a hard time meeting the definition of private event, we're back to public accommodation territory.
4) But what about Curves?  They are gender-exclusive and not getting in trouble so it must be ok!
Sorry slick, but you might be interested to know it is indeed the case that a number of states allow for exemptions to gender discrimination laws.  However it is limited to a specific type of business or entity, and almost always done on religious grounds (yes the original reason gyms and workout centers can gender segregate is because of religious demands).   It is also not the same in every state. Guess what kind of business is not on that list... yeah, there's that liquor license. So does not apply is pretty much how that one ends.  Probably.

See, I like Alamo Drafthouse, and if they get sued or fined, that's bad.  If they lose their license, that's bad also.  I don't want that.  So making sure that this won't bite them in the ass if a state agency gets involved or someone straight up sues is important for them if they don't want to be at risk for something that might shut the place down.

The problem now is that the go-to strategy of 3rd wave is now firmly in place, meaning anyone pointing out that A) this is an example of an entire segment of the population being excluded from public accommodation by a licensed business based exclusively on gender and that B) such a practice is potentially illegal, is now automatically labeled a sexist and misogynist in as loud a shouty-shout voice as can be made.  Woke ≠ Smart.  The bad part about this is that unlike Ghostbusters 2016, the ridiculous infusion of identity politics is going to tarnish what looks like a genuinely good movie this time, which is unfortunate.   I am fully thinking that Wonder Woman is going to be kick-ass.

Now I could be wrong about literally all of this, but until someone comes to me with a cogent, salient argument about the matter, rather than some white-knighting bullshit insult screaming and name calling, that's where I see things landing on this one.

Too sexist for the UN; But not sexist enough for the Box Office.
Makes all the sense you'd expect from people who do stuff like this.

Oh, by simply pointing this out I am now apparently, in addition to being a misogynist, sexist, and racist (somehow), I am also mansplaining... to literally anyone who reads this I guess? Can a man mansplain to another man?  Who fucking knows...


Bobby Moynihan Leaves Saturday Night Live.
Piece of Toast seen laughing maniacally - Garmanarnar inconsolable. In other news, Rick and Morty season 3 is set to air just in time for the 2020 US Presidential election. 

Your Plumbus is on back order, now shut the fuck up!

Yeah ok, they say it's going to air starting in July 2017, but any bunch of fucktards who pull "April Fools" jokes with their own TV series after the year 2004 are both, not to be believed and should be the subject of physical violence whenever possible. Seriously... I hope someone gets kicked in the nuts over this bullshit.


Jim Henson Exhibit to Open at Museum of the Moving Image July
The Museum of the Moving Image has announced that they will open a permanent version of a similar traveling exhibit form years earlier.  According to DNAinfo:

The Jim Henson Exhibition — a gallery of more than 300 objects from the famous puppeteer's career, including dozens of his best-loved puppets — will debut to visitors on July 22, the museum announced Wednesday.

The Museum of the Moving Image is located in Astoria Queens and is easily reached by Subway.


Holy Shit This Actually Happened.

Fucking seriously?  How can being "very uncomfortable" be not personal?.

I've never liked the type of worship of the military-class that started gaining momentum in the USA after it was obvious the wars Congress voted for were going to continue in perpetuity. "You give me special parking spots - my spouse is active duty!" "You don't get to criticize the military because they're fighting for YOUR freedom" (just not the 1st Amendment apparently) "blaaaarrrrggg!!!"  I really fucking hate that.  Did you join the military just so that others would have to kiss your ass?  No? Then stop acting like you're entitled to others kissing your ass.  If you look at the books that Terry Frei has written, you'll see he's really into the whole war and politics stuff as well as sports.

So apparently it seems like that kind of thinking was behind the comment of (former) Denver Post sports reporter Terry Frei, stating he was "uncomfortable" with Japanese Professional Driver Takuma Sato having won the Indi 500 on Memorial Day weekend.  Well, unless this schmuck said the same thing about the race in 2012, 2011, and 2010, when England won (you know, that country that had a giant Empire which tried to stop the USA from literally existing... twice), then it just shows that he's basing his comments on racism, not nationalism...  yeah, I'm gonna go with racism is kinda the worse one of those two.  I'd bet he wouldn't even have said the same thing if a German or Italian driver won this year.  I mean by this fucker's logic, you'd have to think the same "uncomfortable" thing if the race was won by a driver from; Japan, England, Mexico, Canada, Spain, Germany, Italy, Algeria, Turkey, Iraq, Vietnam, The Philippines, Austria, Romania, I guess North Korea too (and almost France that one time).  Something tells me this ass-face probably wouldn't do that.  Therefore his is indeed an ass-face.  ...fucking ass-face.

As an American who likes things Japanese, it's quite deflating to see things like this happen, and even more disheartening to know why they still happen.  Yeah, firing this shithead is a necessary move for the brand of the Denver Post, but the unfortunate part is, it's not going to change the way this fucker thinks in the slightest.  I don't even know if anything really can.

This kind of shit was already cartoonishly worn out in the 1980's.

People are on different sides of the issue; was it a correct decision by The Denver Post to fire this twerp?  Well yes I think it is, but I don't know if I myself would have done it if I were in charge, I'd really have to think about it.  The thing is, Terry Frei is an author and sports reporter for The Denver Post, and is making a public comment about sports.  Personal twitter account or not, keeping him on-board now damages The Denver Post's brand value significantly.  So from a public relations, marketing, and finance perspective, separating the brand from the entity that is Terry Frei is the correct decision.  This is the same kind of thing that happened with JonTron and PlayTonic.

Qualitative analysis can be an important part of corporate strategy as much as quantitative is.