I will be in New York during the end of May.
Coming up before that: A tour of the Gundam Cafe in Akihabara.
-The Angry Otaku
Friday, May 14, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Greater Divide:
You’re REALLY doing it wrong.
Way to go Comedy Central. You really were able to cut your balls off and forget your mission statement in record time. Actually, since it’s a Viacom Company, it never really had balls to begin with and since the mission statement of any Viacom division is “make money” they are really doing the correct thing and protecting economic assets that might otherwise get damaged (do you know how much it’s gonna cost to hire a new secretary after some towel-head sticks a shiv in her right in the middle of Broadway and 43rd? Not to mention the wrongful death suits her hyucklebuck red-state parents are gonna go on a rampage for). So first thing’s first, let’s just all make sure that we know this is Viacom protecting itself from losing money in lawsuits, and not actually giving a shit about their employees (believe me, if you have ever worked for/with Viacom, you’d know they don’t give a shit about you or anyone else).
So because of this, I am not really mad about the censoring of SouthPark by Viacom, because it is impossible to be surprised at this development. If it’s not surprising, it’s not really angering, just more a source of lamentable frustration. What does get me steamed is that Viacom actually has the balls to claim that they are doing this censoring to protect actual people and not their bottom line, but again, since this is such an obvious lie and totally expected, it’s hard to get worked up about it. If Viacom was my magical money tree, I’d do the exact same thing, even knowing that the only threat is coming from some New York City (raised Orthodox-Jewish) convert yuppie whiney pig-fart, who got all antsy in the pantsy to prove he’s just as hard core as the other towelheads even though as a child he had the end of his wennie cut off and sucked on by a drunken bearded freak (yes that’s how circumcision works kids). I’m talking about this guy...who apparently is the only one with his chastity belt in a twist over images such as;
don't fuck with this guy... he'll burn you ...with fire.
Fucking around with us and not telling us who Cartman’s father is was one thing (yes, we still remember that). Shilling for “censor-approved only” comedy and valuable TV time by compromising artistic creativity? We won’t even bother to make fun of you on 4chan.
Try not to let us down.
Epilogue part 1:
"For great justice" some Annons took 5 minutes out of their schedule to hack the crap out of the website that posted the threat in the first place, Revolution Islam. Who knows how long that will last, so here's a shot FTW.
Epilogue part 2:
Apparently there was also a really creative protest to the kind of puss-ing out and manufactured rage that this situation created, but the person who started that has also pussed-out because they're a panzy. Obviously she got some people who know exactly where she lives and yada yada. If you're going to do something ballzy, either be prepared for the nutcases, or do it with some secrecy. It's like if Anonymous showed up at Scientology HQ with their home addresses and SSNs printed on t-shirts. Molly Norris, Fuck You. Just a few strategic moves could have prevented them from finding you. You chose to do something courageous and put your own name on the line, then backed out when it wasn't "indie" enough or you got death threats (which you should publish in full) and you pulled out of the activity. This means you are either a pussy, or such an idiot you didn't realize the slobbering koran freaks would come after you. Those are the only two possibilities: If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen, and #1)You couldn't take the heat or #2) You were too dumb to know you were in the kitchen in the first place.
I talked about this to someone and they countered with "well I don't see you putting something out there that would earn the wrath of militant Islam jackasses" ...to which I say, I do in fact have something ongoing out there right now and you'll never guess what it is. No, really, you'll never guess. That's the point. It's out there and has been seen and talked about and received its share of indignation, but good luck tracking it back to me. That's by design, because I'm not an idiot.
Way to go Comedy Central. You really were able to cut your balls off and forget your mission statement in record time. Actually, since it’s a Viacom Company, it never really had balls to begin with and since the mission statement of any Viacom division is “make money” they are really doing the correct thing and protecting economic assets that might otherwise get damaged (do you know how much it’s gonna cost to hire a new secretary after some towel-head sticks a shiv in her right in the middle of Broadway and 43rd? Not to mention the wrongful death suits her hyucklebuck red-state parents are gonna go on a rampage for). So first thing’s first, let’s just all make sure that we know this is Viacom protecting itself from losing money in lawsuits, and not actually giving a shit about their employees (believe me, if you have ever worked for/with Viacom, you’d know they don’t give a shit about you or anyone else).
So because of this, I am not really mad about the censoring of SouthPark by Viacom, because it is impossible to be surprised at this development. If it’s not surprising, it’s not really angering, just more a source of lamentable frustration. What does get me steamed is that Viacom actually has the balls to claim that they are doing this censoring to protect actual people and not their bottom line, but again, since this is such an obvious lie and totally expected, it’s hard to get worked up about it. If Viacom was my magical money tree, I’d do the exact same thing, even knowing that the only threat is coming from some New York City (raised Orthodox-Jewish) convert yuppie whiney pig-fart, who got all antsy in the pantsy to prove he’s just as hard core as the other towelheads even though as a child he had the end of his wennie cut off and sucked on by a drunken bearded freak (yes that’s how circumcision works kids). I’m talking about this guy...who apparently is the only one with his chastity belt in a twist over images such as;
don't fuck with this guy... he'll burn you ...with fire.But you know who may not care about getting more money? Matt and Trey, and they are the ones I am looking at in this situation. It’s hard to be angry at anyone but them. Why? Because all the other parties involved, Viacom, towelheads, fans, the MSM… they all reacted exactly how historically they have always reacted. It would be out of character for any of these players to not do what they did… except Matt and Trey. Where was your plan B? Why isn’t the uncensored footage leaked out there? Where is the indignation? Why the sound-bite-only silence? This one is worth going to the mat for. This one is worth putting everything on the line, and showing the Viacom Lawyers your shiny ass and saying “I DARE YOU.” This one is worth transferring (how many millions of dollars do you have?) all your liquid into a non-freezable bank and giving a big middle finger to everything those MBA suites like to crunch numbers about at the end of every quarter (yes I can smell the irony).
Fucking around with us and not telling us who Cartman’s father is was one thing (yes, we still remember that). Shilling for “censor-approved only” comedy and valuable TV time by compromising artistic creativity? We won’t even bother to make fun of you on 4chan.
Try not to let us down.
Epilogue part 1:
"For great justice" some Annons took 5 minutes out of their schedule to hack the crap out of the website that posted the threat in the first place, Revolution Islam. Who knows how long that will last, so here's a shot FTW.
Epilogue part 2:
Apparently there was also a really creative protest to the kind of puss-ing out and manufactured rage that this situation created, but the person who started that has also pussed-out because they're a panzy. Obviously she got some people who know exactly where she lives and yada yada. If you're going to do something ballzy, either be prepared for the nutcases, or do it with some secrecy. It's like if Anonymous showed up at Scientology HQ with their home addresses and SSNs printed on t-shirts. Molly Norris, Fuck You. Just a few strategic moves could have prevented them from finding you. You chose to do something courageous and put your own name on the line, then backed out when it wasn't "indie" enough or you got death threats (which you should publish in full) and you pulled out of the activity. This means you are either a pussy, or such an idiot you didn't realize the slobbering koran freaks would come after you. Those are the only two possibilities: If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen, and #1)You couldn't take the heat or #2) You were too dumb to know you were in the kitchen in the first place.
I talked about this to someone and they countered with "well I don't see you putting something out there that would earn the wrath of militant Islam jackasses" ...to which I say, I do in fact have something ongoing out there right now and you'll never guess what it is. No, really, you'll never guess. That's the point. It's out there and has been seen and talked about and received its share of indignation, but good luck tracking it back to me. That's by design, because I'm not an idiot.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Great Divide:
You're dong it wrong.
So apparently it took a few years for Constantin Films to realize they were the source material for a popular meme, but only a few moments for them to react in a way that would have only seemed logical over a decade ago. If you’re reading this, chances are the only reason you know of the existence of “Downfall” is because of this meme. The parodies had not escaped the attention of the actual makers of the film, and director Oliver Hirschbiegel has even been quoted as supporting such parody creations. Although this kind of parody is not protected under fair use laws, the fact that value for the film is generated from these activities should be obvious. Apparently, the people who work at Constantin are such marketing geniuses, they can not understand the source of value for their film in the English speaking market and why having such a thing is not only valuable, but often so very unlikely in the first place and should feel quite fortunate. This kind of thing has happened for so long now, that there are business school cases written about how companies like Constantin have fucked up a great source of publicity because it goes against the grain of “old media” thinking.
(see, all he needed was some "re-branding")
Of course, most of everyone reading knows that it’s not only a dick move, but unprofitable as well. However the crux of the matter is that while fans and people in the know are aware of this kind of thing, they have still been unable to articulate exactly what is happening in terms of this meme helping the film’s sales, and why it is important. The fact is that these companies simply have not been illuminated to the actual principle as it operates, that once a piece of media has passed into the level of public meme, not only can it not be stopped, but should be taken advantage of. So lets look at the situation:
This thing shows up on the internet and eventually becomes an anticipated regular to most major news developments from the death of Michael Jackson to the victory of BluRay over Microsoft in the battle for Hi-Def DVD industry standard. Before too long, hundreds nay, thousands, of people who otherwise would have never heard of this film were looking it up on IMDB and sure enough I am sure that someone somewhere bought a DVD of this movie because of seeing the meme. But that kind of purchase is the exception, not the rule. In reality, this kind of meme awareness high speed take-off rarely means that there is any increase in actual packaged media sales beyond a fraction of a percent. The Academy Award™©® nomination would have a stronger effect on sales, since it broadly reaches a narrow cluster. This kind of thing is not something that increases sales with a narrow reaching of broad clusters. But it's also not about sales.
It's not the increase or decrease in sales that is the real source of value here. Although intangible and abstractly qualitative, it is the awareness and commonality across very different segments that can be taken advantage of and felt in terms of other areas such as new IP development, or (in the short term) getting the thing into some rental accounts. In the end, it's not about protecting "good" brand awareness by pulling the video, but avoiding "bad" brand awareness by making sure your company's actions do not come off as seemingly as douche-tastic as possible. In a singly publicized move, Constantin Films has gone from having a fairly innocuous brand status of "the company that made that Hitler movie that get remixed on the internet" and brought it straight to "that evil company that doesn't know how to relate to how people interact with media."
Now I am pretty sure that Constantin Films is not so retarded that they actually think they are losing sales or really being financially hurt because of this, so that only leaves two other options, both of which lead to the same conclusion of absolute douchebagery and dickishness. Option one; some cock producer (obviously not the director since we’ve established he is happy about this kind of thing) thinks that the “art” of the film is somehow being corrupted and like George Lucas they want to control everything that happens with their “baby” of a film. Second possibility is that people at Constantin are Hitler fans and don’t want him made fun of. I’ll go with option #2 since this blog has yet to pull a Godwin. So I will say right here that I firmly believe that Constantin Films are Nazis and love Hitler, and that's why they filed the take-down notices.
If there were ever a textbook case of what not to do in terms of marketing and brand management in the digital age, it would be Constantin Films and Downfall. Hopefully, this episode will lead to the actual downfall of this sadly uneducated and misguided company. But as an individual incident with individual players, this is just another short term flash in the pan of the universe that is internet shenanigans, and in 6 weeks no one will care, let alone 6 months.
Now the thing is, this is actually indicative of how far behind the media industries of other countries are in terms of where they should be, and Japan is no exception. It’s strange to come from an American generation that has to groan and roll their eyes when told to do such ancient clichés like “think outside the box” or “give 110%” in what we do. The fact is, that in countries like Germany, China, and Japan, “think outside the box” is actually still considered groundbreaking and using that phrase in a sentence in a non-ironic way can still have people take you seriously.
So what do we do when the mindsets and operational expectations of consumers are so far advanced from the old world media that produces the entertainment content they are keen to purchase? Aside from what Shogakukan has done with Viz (at least in part), the basic Japanese strategy has been to simply ignore those segments that are more advanced in their thinking than you can be. Companies simply go on to make what they make, and neither take advantage of, nor pay much attention to viral awareness indicators like internet activity or meme status. That’s not to say these companies don’t realize something should be done. I just spent a month-long consulting gig at a Japanese media company that wanted to “activated” their viewers in some sort of “new community” but had no intention of changing what they were doing in the slightest. The sad fact is that most of these companies still believe that they can take advantage of internet-born marketing phenomena, while retaining pre-internet strategies and business models.
People have accused the recent Shogakukan request to take off the scanned manga out there to be part of this misunderstanding, but that is in all honestly bullshit. Shogakukan properties have just as much right to as much protection as novels or other commercial media have. Raw scans lead to scanlations, which don't necessarily take away sales, but ruin the value of a license. This is something I talked about before way back when, in response to Justin Sevakis and fansubs, so we won't rehash that here.
Welcome to the future, you’re the only one here.
Speaking of tackling people that are "out of touch", the recent post by Miss Dynamite creator has, on his blog, posted an example of the kind of level of head-up-ass syndrome that I thought was only relegated to urban legend at this point. But then again, it involves a government agency, which might explain why they're so behind the curve of understanding.
-
So apparently it took a few years for Constantin Films to realize they were the source material for a popular meme, but only a few moments for them to react in a way that would have only seemed logical over a decade ago. If you’re reading this, chances are the only reason you know of the existence of “Downfall” is because of this meme. The parodies had not escaped the attention of the actual makers of the film, and director Oliver Hirschbiegel has even been quoted as supporting such parody creations. Although this kind of parody is not protected under fair use laws, the fact that value for the film is generated from these activities should be obvious. Apparently, the people who work at Constantin are such marketing geniuses, they can not understand the source of value for their film in the English speaking market and why having such a thing is not only valuable, but often so very unlikely in the first place and should feel quite fortunate. This kind of thing has happened for so long now, that there are business school cases written about how companies like Constantin have fucked up a great source of publicity because it goes against the grain of “old media” thinking.
(see, all he needed was some "re-branding")Of course, most of everyone reading knows that it’s not only a dick move, but unprofitable as well. However the crux of the matter is that while fans and people in the know are aware of this kind of thing, they have still been unable to articulate exactly what is happening in terms of this meme helping the film’s sales, and why it is important. The fact is that these companies simply have not been illuminated to the actual principle as it operates, that once a piece of media has passed into the level of public meme, not only can it not be stopped, but should be taken advantage of. So lets look at the situation:
This thing shows up on the internet and eventually becomes an anticipated regular to most major news developments from the death of Michael Jackson to the victory of BluRay over Microsoft in the battle for Hi-Def DVD industry standard. Before too long, hundreds nay, thousands, of people who otherwise would have never heard of this film were looking it up on IMDB and sure enough I am sure that someone somewhere bought a DVD of this movie because of seeing the meme. But that kind of purchase is the exception, not the rule. In reality, this kind of meme awareness high speed take-off rarely means that there is any increase in actual packaged media sales beyond a fraction of a percent. The Academy Award™©® nomination would have a stronger effect on sales, since it broadly reaches a narrow cluster. This kind of thing is not something that increases sales with a narrow reaching of broad clusters. But it's also not about sales.
It's not the increase or decrease in sales that is the real source of value here. Although intangible and abstractly qualitative, it is the awareness and commonality across very different segments that can be taken advantage of and felt in terms of other areas such as new IP development, or (in the short term) getting the thing into some rental accounts. In the end, it's not about protecting "good" brand awareness by pulling the video, but avoiding "bad" brand awareness by making sure your company's actions do not come off as seemingly as douche-tastic as possible. In a singly publicized move, Constantin Films has gone from having a fairly innocuous brand status of "the company that made that Hitler movie that get remixed on the internet" and brought it straight to "that evil company that doesn't know how to relate to how people interact with media."
Now I am pretty sure that Constantin Films is not so retarded that they actually think they are losing sales or really being financially hurt because of this, so that only leaves two other options, both of which lead to the same conclusion of absolute douchebagery and dickishness. Option one; some cock producer (obviously not the director since we’ve established he is happy about this kind of thing) thinks that the “art” of the film is somehow being corrupted and like George Lucas they want to control everything that happens with their “baby” of a film. Second possibility is that people at Constantin are Hitler fans and don’t want him made fun of. I’ll go with option #2 since this blog has yet to pull a Godwin. So I will say right here that I firmly believe that Constantin Films are Nazis and love Hitler, and that's why they filed the take-down notices.
If there were ever a textbook case of what not to do in terms of marketing and brand management in the digital age, it would be Constantin Films and Downfall. Hopefully, this episode will lead to the actual downfall of this sadly uneducated and misguided company. But as an individual incident with individual players, this is just another short term flash in the pan of the universe that is internet shenanigans, and in 6 weeks no one will care, let alone 6 months.
(You know who else invented the first non-smoking campaign?)
Now the thing is, this is actually indicative of how far behind the media industries of other countries are in terms of where they should be, and Japan is no exception. It’s strange to come from an American generation that has to groan and roll their eyes when told to do such ancient clichés like “think outside the box” or “give 110%” in what we do. The fact is, that in countries like Germany, China, and Japan, “think outside the box” is actually still considered groundbreaking and using that phrase in a sentence in a non-ironic way can still have people take you seriously.
So what do we do when the mindsets and operational expectations of consumers are so far advanced from the old world media that produces the entertainment content they are keen to purchase? Aside from what Shogakukan has done with Viz (at least in part), the basic Japanese strategy has been to simply ignore those segments that are more advanced in their thinking than you can be. Companies simply go on to make what they make, and neither take advantage of, nor pay much attention to viral awareness indicators like internet activity or meme status. That’s not to say these companies don’t realize something should be done. I just spent a month-long consulting gig at a Japanese media company that wanted to “activated” their viewers in some sort of “new community” but had no intention of changing what they were doing in the slightest. The sad fact is that most of these companies still believe that they can take advantage of internet-born marketing phenomena, while retaining pre-internet strategies and business models.
People have accused the recent Shogakukan request to take off the scanned manga out there to be part of this misunderstanding, but that is in all honestly bullshit. Shogakukan properties have just as much right to as much protection as novels or other commercial media have. Raw scans lead to scanlations, which don't necessarily take away sales, but ruin the value of a license. This is something I talked about before way back when, in response to Justin Sevakis and fansubs, so we won't rehash that here.
Welcome to the future, you’re the only one here.
Speaking of tackling people that are "out of touch", the recent post by Miss Dynamite creator has, on his blog, posted an example of the kind of level of head-up-ass syndrome that I thought was only relegated to urban legend at this point. But then again, it involves a government agency, which might explain why they're so behind the curve of understanding.
-
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Maybe a dingo ate your common sense?
Nice one Australia.
As if that country hadn’t embarrassed itself enough by banning all pornography featuring boobs that weren’t “big enough” because somehow a 35 year old A-cup with a giant bush getting raw-dogged by some dude with a footlong (photo unavailable) is a simulation of child porn, Australia has taken its approach to limiting what’s done on the internet one step further beyond the previous “would make China proud” standard, to levels which demand their own series of words that haven been invented yet. Apparently, deliberately offensive internet content (or lulz of any kind) in Australia are so illegal, that they can threaten someone with some sort of criminal charges even if you don’t live/do anything what so ever there. This is no “you hurt my feelings” civil lawsuit, but a threat to begin a genuine criminal action by a government body against someone who violated an Australian law outside the country. It would be like
Australia
Back to this particular case however, and again I am just at a loss here. The USA has offended everyone in the universe as well as a few people who don’t actually exist, there’s been a war criminal (more or less) allowed to freely go back about his Halliburton business, the country is just coming out of the dark ages of for-profit health-care for citizens, and has a disturbing amount of people in it who believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, dinosaur bones have been put here by god to test our faith, and global warming doesn’t matter because Jesus will be here next week to take all the “real Americans” safely away. Yet the Australian Department of who-gives-a-crap has decided to pick this battle to bring against the better, more successful version of what it could have been if they just stopped putting the queen on their money. (Yes, I'm saying America is better than Australia). Or is this just part of some clever attempt to keep Americans out of every other country with running water and toilet paper?
In this situation there is really nothing more to be said other than as someone living outside the USA, I am more than a little bit wanton to get the hell back under the rights and protections it offers. Imagine if some Chinese person was “offended” at Shampoo’s blatantly ching-chong racist-y sounding accent in Ranma 1/2? Or the patently offensive caricature-like depictions of black people that happen in manga all the time were deemed “hate speech” because someone saw it and got bent out of shape. These materials would not only banned from bookstores, but possessing them would get you in trouble, and forget about finding them online. The ED page that has caused this stir received a grand total of 20 complaints. Twenty people in all of
Note to self, add one more reason to stay the hell off of that spider infested hell of an island.
ENEMY OF THE INTERNET
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
What Have I Become?
…A morning person. 1) not by choice. 2) not a very good one either. Living and working in Japan will almost certainly make you a morning person unless you are either a nightclub owner, cab driver, or the night-shift guy at the convenience store who not only has to man the counter but restock all the shelves while the store is open too (they never ever close… ever).
The 2010 Tokyo Anime Fair is coming up and although I’m registered I may or may not be there much. Why you may ask? Because I’ll actually be working at ***** as a consultant for the month of March, regarding some “stuff” they want to do. “Stuff” means it’s confidential and I can’t talk about it. Unfortunately I’ll be over at their actual offices and not at Tokyo Big Site, but… you never know. If anyone on my “cool” list out there (you know who you are) wants my free ticket, they can have it. Just get over here.
I should post more, but getting an MBA is taking a lot more time out of the day than I thought it would (for every hour you spend doing school stuff there are about 2 hours doing support and legwork for that school stuff… ever tried to figure out a WACC in your head? …no me neither). So, sorry for that.
Stare into the face of evil.
Living the Life:
It never ceases to amaze me what’s being done withCase in point this …thing. Oppai aside it really is both entertaining and incredible annoying. A whole generation of weaboo are going to see this and think this is like… everywhere in Japan, and then join
You could argue that the audience in this case is not really to blame, and this entire notion is a perpetuated myth deliberately reinforced my media companies who need it to be “true” in order to lend legitimacy to cultural phenomena they can control, package, and sell for a profit (hell that’s why I’m here… to do exactly that). But it still begs the question of necessity in terms of that particular direction. Once again, is art imitating life, or yada yada yada (click on that, I dare ya).
New Business is New Business:
Now with Taro Aso long gone and the dream of TARP manga money coming from the government, probably a good thing, the industry is going to have to find its way out of the current mess it’s in right now. A mess of their own making? …hardly, but a mess they are in none the less. OE isn’t really an option and they aren’t going to sell any more books/get people watch more anime any time soon (that’s IN Japan, we’ve already established the international markets are more or less worthless). So they can raise prices, expand into new types of media, expand into new types of completely unrelated business (cheese maybe?)… or become seriously smaller companies and deal with that. Honestly I don’t want to go into it any more… or do I? (There’s a reason I’ll be consulting somewhere for something).
Moving Forward:
After the tragic death of Yoshito Usui, creator of Crayon Shin-chan, the show was yanked off the air and there was a bit of ambiguity as to if the show would air the scheduled episodes, and/or produce new episodes. Thankfully, the show has continued and will continue into the future. Ending the show wouldn’t be a “first” in the world of manga and anime (Sazae-san is still going, along with Astro Boy and all that). But this would be the first time in recent memory someone’s kicked it while the original show is still going. Still slightly ballsy by Japanese standards.
Insider Trading:
A guy in my MBA Class is/was (on hiatus?) a project manager for Doraemon among other things, and says the thing aint what it used to be. Oh they’re still gonna make/air it for a bit, but it’s pretty much well on that long march into night if things don’t drastically change (FYI in the history of the universe, this "drastic change" has happened exactly never, so don’t hold your breath …no, Family Guy doesn’t count).
About Anime?
Been catching reruns of Oedo Rocket and Kochi Kame on TV. They’re fun. You should watch them.
About
You should learn Japanese. Go here. I did. It’s nice.
About the Internet:
This is a good podcast. You should subscribe. It’s about
Why I’m cool:
I can watch TV (like Shin-chan) on my cell phone for free. Also, I am pretty sure my accounting professor happens to somehow be related to a famous ninja clan.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Downward Spiral: Rise and Fall of Anime?
Yeah, I’m talking about you.
Hello Otaku readers, and others who shall not be named.
So CNN Go has run this “rise and fall” style list about anime as a viable contributor to popular entertainment. Notice I use the word “contributor” and not “product.” This is because this article glosses over any actual business or strategy issues which had to do with the stated outcome, and only puts emphasis on the cultural fan aspects of the back and forth between Japan and the rest of the world which always has a certain color tint to it in terms of which land mass you’re standing on. This is not to say that emphasis on the “fandom” aspects of pop culture development and distributive interpolation between otaku japonica and the rest of the world is misplaced, but rather is only one half of the delicious black and white cookie that is the anime universe we all seem to share space in… in one form or another.
In particular, it was point for year 2005, on the early shift of the style of commercial anime being made that had me raising the out of bounds flag. Not that it’s wrong in describing what happened, but it leaves out the necessary “why.” The “Densha Otoko” thing is something that seems to be a likely source of directional change if we apply a Hollywood style trend-chasing idiot flash in the pan mentality to the Japanese entertainment industry. But that’s not really how it works, one need only compare that popular anime with the hero with the yellow hair who wears orange and must increase his fighting ability under the tutelage of great masters in order to defeat his black haired blue wearing nemesis who has evil powers to save the girl he likes… no not that yellow haired orange clad fighter, the other one. The Japanese entertainment business is a business, and a Japanese business at that, meaning that Japanese business sensibilities are going to be what steers the wheel here and Japanese business sensibilities are quite the opposite from trend chasing, and much more in the “stick with what works” camp. Just look at how long the LDP was running things? (The "stick with what we think works" strategy at least)
Well then what’s with the change in focus? The answer is two fold. First; there really wasn’t a massive shift in the type of content being produced, only in how much of it was being dumped into the U.S. market, and second; the reason is YOU. Yes American otaku, I hate to do the bubble bursting again, (you've heard it here before) but you are NOT part of the anime market. Your existence means next to nothing to most IP producers here in Japan, and yet you keep thinking that somehow the fact that there is such a strong fandom in the U.S. has some sort of bearing on what happens in the boardrooms of Bandai or Pony Canyon or whoever is bankrolling the next project. Well at the risk of alienating any more American otaku, let me just say that you mean nothing to the anime industry and it’s your own damned fault. Why you may ask? Because you’re not profitable in the least. The American market has simply sucked up content at an astounding rate, without providing any net present value for the companies that outlay cash to produce them. It’s folly for me to think that I could actually convince some anime fan that in early 2008, watching fansubbed episodes of Gurren Lagann and then cosplaying as Kamina or Bachika is really an insult to Gainax and other Japanese companies, but believe me, that’s what it is and that’s what those companies feel with a high degree of impact. Here they are having made this product, ready to license it to the U.S., and you are in their face saying “I’ve already seen it and so don’t need to pay you or your licensee anything… thanks for the free show.”
So in short, the reason that anime has become so very Japanese-centric is because anime is Japanese, and only the domestic audience provides these companies with significant revenue (revenue as opposed to profits… revenue is what you use to pay your staff and keep the lights on). America in this instance, save for a few properties and Puffy Ami Yumi, is more or less worthless, since none of what the fans do in their media consumptions benefits the actual producers in the slightest. If the U.S. market could actually earn money, then you bet these producers would care about appealing to it. But since American fandom seems intent on pissing on the hard work of Japan, by watching fansubs and de-valuing licenses before they can ever be capitalized (like I have said before, if the core audience watches the title online before a broadcast license is in place, then that potential license becomes worthless since the core audience has already seen the piece and so any station airing it can not guarantee advertisers that a certain amount of people will watch, making that property worthless), then it will be a long time before Japan cares what works in the U.S.
The reason anime is declining in general even in its domestic market, is because the Japanese market itself isn’t what used to be. There are a few reasons for that, like JPY stagflation, prohibitive costs, change in lifestyle of the average Japanese citizen, but the main reason is the age-bulge. I’ve gone into this before, but the basic reality of it is that a ridiculously percentage of Japanese are now over 60, and it will just keep going up for a while. You know what people over 60 don’t do? Watch anime (except for Sazae-san, which I’m sure you’ve never heard of), and they don’t really buy manga either. They travel Japan, play golf if they’re able, and watch cooking shows and the “Go” channel (yes, there’s an entire cable channel dedicated to people playing that game). So much of the anime produced is for the outnumbered Japanese youth that see nothing but the bleakest of bleak economic futures where they will have to work to support mom, dad, grandma & grandpa x2, and god forbid any kids they might have… From SaiKano to Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 the future sucks if you’re under 30… or 40 for that matter, and a massive cataclysm might just make your life easier if you actually live through it.
Each generation has something that speaks for it. The fact is, that in the U.S. at the time, anime spoke for huge chunks of Gen X and Gen Y mostly because it simply was not the Hanna-Barbera Americanized crap that the baby boomers seemed to think would last forever. Not because anime had some universal appeal outside of Japanese cultural sensibilities. Akira was simply “cool” in the U.S. because it had very high quality animation, cool motor-cycles, and all kinds of action (like when that guy got shot a whole lot and there was blood everywhere… dude yeah… heh cool). The socio-political themes of late 1980’s Japan were completely lost on American audiences, but they were in Akira none the less. This is s symptom of anime that would last a decade, with each culture superimposing it’s own experiences and identities onto a medium which (at that time) lent itself so easily to that activity by having character designs and settings that were so ethnically and culturally ambiguous as to not give the slightest pause to totally immersing oneself into the story. That’s either not possible or necessary now, and the Hot-Topic Twilight crowd now seems to be where merchandisers and licensors want to go… leaving celluloid gravestones in their wake.
And now for something not so completely different:
Warning: Otaku-Fandom rant to be forthcoming.
Real anime fans out there, yes that includes even you weaboos, should be worried about this. The reason is that the Darwinian wheel of fandom spares nothing that shows weakness. Fringes of abhorrent behaviors of human society will always try to climb on board the weakest platforms of popular culture. One of the major casualties that we can look back on which has happened recently is the anthro or “furry” fandom. Here’s a fandom which, in the 1980’s was just another indie comic genre that had everything going for it. Now, it’s associated with everything from skunk fuckers to pedo-freaks. Anime is showing some dangerous cracks in the façade where this kind of thing is going to sneak in and ruin it for the rest of us. Much as I often agree with the guys over at Santoku Complex in defending fictional depictions of anything ever (since it’s fiction, so that’s that) I believe there IS a line that can’t be crossed.
For example, horror movie fans can watch whatever kind of slasher, chainsaw dismemberment movie they wish to, because it’s a movie, but putting that notion into practice, is not a good thing. So although I am a very staunch supporter of the rights of the individual to consume drawn/animated/CGI artwork of anything they choose, I have to draw the line when the type of people who advocate putting that into real practice jump on the fandom bandwagon proclaiming it as a manifestation of lifestyle. No. No no no. People who support the freedom of expression and common sense notions of a drawing being a drawing have to stop at some point when it comes to giving the inch that would become a mile to the actual pedos out there. The whole “Freedom-tan” notion and the organization behind it are an example of something that crosses the line, just a little. The reason is, that the reason they defend such properties is because they obviously believe in putting such notions into practice. No, not everyone there does... probably not even half the people there do, but there's going to be that 10% which is going to paint the other 90% in that light. To have this associated with Japanese pop-culture, is an insult and a serious problem when it comes to having anime and other japanese pop culture products being taken seriously as a commercial product.
First: no, you’re not Japanese, don’t think that adding “tan” to the end of your mascot/slogan/mission statement/whatever, gives you an insight into actual Japanese sensibilities. You don’t live in Japan, and by doing this you're really not gonna make many friends there because believe it or not, while tolerated, this kind of thing is regarded as more or less creepy, because you're never sure if these guys are gonna take that fandom one step too far into real life.
Second: The basic ideas of freedom here, is to allow for freedom of expression, such as those within the Constitution of the United States of America. While noble, this is by no means universal, and may not apply to you in the same way or at all, since you have a monarch on your money (UK, Canada, Australia, NZ ), or might be living down the street from a monarch like in Tokyo, Thailand, or Brunei. I can't fucking stand when some retarded American starts jumping up and down about "constitutional rights" when they're in another country... They don't apply you dumbass, and this attempt to superimpose them onto other countries with different cultural sensibilities and (more importantly) different laws based on those sensibilities, is the dictionary definition of "stupid American."
Third: While it is deplorable that someone would be prosecuted for having fictional depictions of anything which in practice is illegal (such as murder, terrorism, drug use, underage sex, dog-fighting, dolphin BBQ, etc) having actual film of that criminal act being committed, is simply having evidence of a crime that has been committed, and that leads straight to legal gray areas of all sorts. If you were trading real snuff films it might be the same.
I could go on forever, but the basic premise here is that anime fans had fought long and hard against mainstream media to make sure that commercial markets did not associate the genre with nothing but sex and violence. We succeeded and anime become (albeit an unsustainable) genre of entertainment. Now, that anime is showing weakness as a commercial property, pedophiles and skunk-fuckers are jumping all over small bits of the darkest depths of doujin manga and 2am anime and calling attention to it as if it was a validation of their genuine desire to have sex with 8 year olds. So far, the only defense against this kind of infiltration has been to make the genre profitable, creating a large group capable of drowning out these pedos so that they would go somewhere else. Now that anime is losing money, they’ve come in like a hoard of locusts to claim anime as some sort of champion of a pedophiliac lifestyle that should be accepted because they say so. That’s like an axe murderer asking for an acquittal because he genuinely “felt like” hacking someone to death and that desire is part of his personality that you shouldn’t impede. No sir, I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. However I may not agree with your philosophy of action and I will fight to the death should you attempt to practice such action on me... and my own freedom-tan will be right there with me.
If anyone out there has read the Japanese story of 蜘蛛の糸 (The Spider’s Thread... a good read if you're studying Japanese, not too much kanji) this is the situation anime fandom is in. We are climbing up a thread, up to a level where we can exist as a viable industry. On the thread up which we climb, come hoards of the deepest darkest souls that the underworld has to offer. Should the climber become too distracted by them, or fight them directly, they shall fall and be dragged down to the depths from whence they came. Anime otaku must simply keep climbing forward, even if it seems as if they are about to eclipse us, the forward climbing must not stop.
-
Hello Otaku readers, and others who shall not be named.
So CNN Go has run this “rise and fall” style list about anime as a viable contributor to popular entertainment. Notice I use the word “contributor” and not “product.” This is because this article glosses over any actual business or strategy issues which had to do with the stated outcome, and only puts emphasis on the cultural fan aspects of the back and forth between Japan and the rest of the world which always has a certain color tint to it in terms of which land mass you’re standing on. This is not to say that emphasis on the “fandom” aspects of pop culture development and distributive interpolation between otaku japonica and the rest of the world is misplaced, but rather is only one half of the delicious black and white cookie that is the anime universe we all seem to share space in… in one form or another.
In particular, it was point for year 2005, on the early shift of the style of commercial anime being made that had me raising the out of bounds flag. Not that it’s wrong in describing what happened, but it leaves out the necessary “why.” The “Densha Otoko” thing is something that seems to be a likely source of directional change if we apply a Hollywood style trend-chasing idiot flash in the pan mentality to the Japanese entertainment industry. But that’s not really how it works, one need only compare that popular anime with the hero with the yellow hair who wears orange and must increase his fighting ability under the tutelage of great masters in order to defeat his black haired blue wearing nemesis who has evil powers to save the girl he likes… no not that yellow haired orange clad fighter, the other one. The Japanese entertainment business is a business, and a Japanese business at that, meaning that Japanese business sensibilities are going to be what steers the wheel here and Japanese business sensibilities are quite the opposite from trend chasing, and much more in the “stick with what works” camp. Just look at how long the LDP was running things? (The "stick with what we think works" strategy at least)
Well then what’s with the change in focus? The answer is two fold. First; there really wasn’t a massive shift in the type of content being produced, only in how much of it was being dumped into the U.S. market, and second; the reason is YOU. Yes American otaku, I hate to do the bubble bursting again, (you've heard it here before) but you are NOT part of the anime market. Your existence means next to nothing to most IP producers here in Japan, and yet you keep thinking that somehow the fact that there is such a strong fandom in the U.S. has some sort of bearing on what happens in the boardrooms of Bandai or Pony Canyon or whoever is bankrolling the next project. Well at the risk of alienating any more American otaku, let me just say that you mean nothing to the anime industry and it’s your own damned fault. Why you may ask? Because you’re not profitable in the least. The American market has simply sucked up content at an astounding rate, without providing any net present value for the companies that outlay cash to produce them. It’s folly for me to think that I could actually convince some anime fan that in early 2008, watching fansubbed episodes of Gurren Lagann and then cosplaying as Kamina or Bachika is really an insult to Gainax and other Japanese companies, but believe me, that’s what it is and that’s what those companies feel with a high degree of impact. Here they are having made this product, ready to license it to the U.S., and you are in their face saying “I’ve already seen it and so don’t need to pay you or your licensee anything… thanks for the free show.”
So in short, the reason that anime has become so very Japanese-centric is because anime is Japanese, and only the domestic audience provides these companies with significant revenue (revenue as opposed to profits… revenue is what you use to pay your staff and keep the lights on). America in this instance, save for a few properties and Puffy Ami Yumi, is more or less worthless, since none of what the fans do in their media consumptions benefits the actual producers in the slightest. If the U.S. market could actually earn money, then you bet these producers would care about appealing to it. But since American fandom seems intent on pissing on the hard work of Japan, by watching fansubs and de-valuing licenses before they can ever be capitalized (like I have said before, if the core audience watches the title online before a broadcast license is in place, then that potential license becomes worthless since the core audience has already seen the piece and so any station airing it can not guarantee advertisers that a certain amount of people will watch, making that property worthless), then it will be a long time before Japan cares what works in the U.S.
The reason anime is declining in general even in its domestic market, is because the Japanese market itself isn’t what used to be. There are a few reasons for that, like JPY stagflation, prohibitive costs, change in lifestyle of the average Japanese citizen, but the main reason is the age-bulge. I’ve gone into this before, but the basic reality of it is that a ridiculously percentage of Japanese are now over 60, and it will just keep going up for a while. You know what people over 60 don’t do? Watch anime (except for Sazae-san, which I’m sure you’ve never heard of), and they don’t really buy manga either. They travel Japan, play golf if they’re able, and watch cooking shows and the “Go” channel (yes, there’s an entire cable channel dedicated to people playing that game). So much of the anime produced is for the outnumbered Japanese youth that see nothing but the bleakest of bleak economic futures where they will have to work to support mom, dad, grandma & grandpa x2, and god forbid any kids they might have… From SaiKano to Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 the future sucks if you’re under 30… or 40 for that matter, and a massive cataclysm might just make your life easier if you actually live through it.
Each generation has something that speaks for it. The fact is, that in the U.S. at the time, anime spoke for huge chunks of Gen X and Gen Y mostly because it simply was not the Hanna-Barbera Americanized crap that the baby boomers seemed to think would last forever. Not because anime had some universal appeal outside of Japanese cultural sensibilities. Akira was simply “cool” in the U.S. because it had very high quality animation, cool motor-cycles, and all kinds of action (like when that guy got shot a whole lot and there was blood everywhere… dude yeah… heh cool). The socio-political themes of late 1980’s Japan were completely lost on American audiences, but they were in Akira none the less. This is s symptom of anime that would last a decade, with each culture superimposing it’s own experiences and identities onto a medium which (at that time) lent itself so easily to that activity by having character designs and settings that were so ethnically and culturally ambiguous as to not give the slightest pause to totally immersing oneself into the story. That’s either not possible or necessary now, and the Hot-Topic Twilight crowd now seems to be where merchandisers and licensors want to go… leaving celluloid gravestones in their wake.
And now for something not so completely different:
Warning: Otaku-Fandom rant to be forthcoming.
Real anime fans out there, yes that includes even you weaboos, should be worried about this. The reason is that the Darwinian wheel of fandom spares nothing that shows weakness. Fringes of abhorrent behaviors of human society will always try to climb on board the weakest platforms of popular culture. One of the major casualties that we can look back on which has happened recently is the anthro or “furry” fandom. Here’s a fandom which, in the 1980’s was just another indie comic genre that had everything going for it. Now, it’s associated with everything from skunk fuckers to pedo-freaks. Anime is showing some dangerous cracks in the façade where this kind of thing is going to sneak in and ruin it for the rest of us. Much as I often agree with the guys over at Santoku Complex in defending fictional depictions of anything ever (since it’s fiction, so that’s that) I believe there IS a line that can’t be crossed.
For example, horror movie fans can watch whatever kind of slasher, chainsaw dismemberment movie they wish to, because it’s a movie, but putting that notion into practice, is not a good thing. So although I am a very staunch supporter of the rights of the individual to consume drawn/animated/CGI artwork of anything they choose, I have to draw the line when the type of people who advocate putting that into real practice jump on the fandom bandwagon proclaiming it as a manifestation of lifestyle. No. No no no. People who support the freedom of expression and common sense notions of a drawing being a drawing have to stop at some point when it comes to giving the inch that would become a mile to the actual pedos out there. The whole “Freedom-tan” notion and the organization behind it are an example of something that crosses the line, just a little. The reason is, that the reason they defend such properties is because they obviously believe in putting such notions into practice. No, not everyone there does... probably not even half the people there do, but there's going to be that 10% which is going to paint the other 90% in that light. To have this associated with Japanese pop-culture, is an insult and a serious problem when it comes to having anime and other japanese pop culture products being taken seriously as a commercial product.
First: no, you’re not Japanese, don’t think that adding “tan” to the end of your mascot/slogan/mission statement/whatever, gives you an insight into actual Japanese sensibilities. You don’t live in Japan, and by doing this you're really not gonna make many friends there because believe it or not, while tolerated, this kind of thing is regarded as more or less creepy, because you're never sure if these guys are gonna take that fandom one step too far into real life.
Second: The basic ideas of freedom here, is to allow for freedom of expression, such as those within the Constitution of the United States of America. While noble, this is by no means universal, and may not apply to you in the same way or at all, since you have a monarch on your money (UK, Canada, Australia, NZ ), or might be living down the street from a monarch like in Tokyo, Thailand, or Brunei. I can't fucking stand when some retarded American starts jumping up and down about "constitutional rights" when they're in another country... They don't apply you dumbass, and this attempt to superimpose them onto other countries with different cultural sensibilities and (more importantly) different laws based on those sensibilities, is the dictionary definition of "stupid American."
Third: While it is deplorable that someone would be prosecuted for having fictional depictions of anything which in practice is illegal (such as murder, terrorism, drug use, underage sex, dog-fighting, dolphin BBQ, etc) having actual film of that criminal act being committed, is simply having evidence of a crime that has been committed, and that leads straight to legal gray areas of all sorts. If you were trading real snuff films it might be the same.
I could go on forever, but the basic premise here is that anime fans had fought long and hard against mainstream media to make sure that commercial markets did not associate the genre with nothing but sex and violence. We succeeded and anime become (albeit an unsustainable) genre of entertainment. Now, that anime is showing weakness as a commercial property, pedophiles and skunk-fuckers are jumping all over small bits of the darkest depths of doujin manga and 2am anime and calling attention to it as if it was a validation of their genuine desire to have sex with 8 year olds. So far, the only defense against this kind of infiltration has been to make the genre profitable, creating a large group capable of drowning out these pedos so that they would go somewhere else. Now that anime is losing money, they’ve come in like a hoard of locusts to claim anime as some sort of champion of a pedophiliac lifestyle that should be accepted because they say so. That’s like an axe murderer asking for an acquittal because he genuinely “felt like” hacking someone to death and that desire is part of his personality that you shouldn’t impede. No sir, I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. However I may not agree with your philosophy of action and I will fight to the death should you attempt to practice such action on me... and my own freedom-tan will be right there with me.
If anyone out there has read the Japanese story of 蜘蛛の糸 (The Spider’s Thread... a good read if you're studying Japanese, not too much kanji) this is the situation anime fandom is in. We are climbing up a thread, up to a level where we can exist as a viable industry. On the thread up which we climb, come hoards of the deepest darkest souls that the underworld has to offer. Should the climber become too distracted by them, or fight them directly, they shall fall and be dragged down to the depths from whence they came. Anime otaku must simply keep climbing forward, even if it seems as if they are about to eclipse us, the forward climbing must not stop.
-
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
No I'm not dead... it's worse.
I have been in actual MBA grad-school here in Tokyo since the end of summer and what not. I actually haven't slept since then other than the few times from passing out over accounting records from exhaustion. If you're wondering, the school is called "Hitotsubashi" and if you're still wondering, then just google it. I'm now a member of Josui Kaikan, and will be attending the awarding of the Porter Prize. So yeah, I've been busy.
So in the world of anime, blah blah blah some stuff happened and yeah whatever. Listen people, Japanese Graduate University takes up all your time and then makes you borrow more from people you know and makes you its bitch. There was lots of stuff I wanted to post about, but just couldn't. There is lots of stuff I want to subtitle and get out there, but it's gonna take some more time. That's just the way it is. On the up-side, My campus is right next to Shogakukan HQ here in Tokyo and I go over there to study their business model sometimes. It's amazing what just dropping this school name can do.
So yes, there shall be posts again, but not until after finals. @_@.
So in the world of anime, blah blah blah some stuff happened and yeah whatever. Listen people, Japanese Graduate University takes up all your time and then makes you borrow more from people you know and makes you its bitch. There was lots of stuff I wanted to post about, but just couldn't. There is lots of stuff I want to subtitle and get out there, but it's gonna take some more time. That's just the way it is. On the up-side, My campus is right next to Shogakukan HQ here in Tokyo and I go over there to study their business model sometimes. It's amazing what just dropping this school name can do.
So yes, there shall be posts again, but not until after finals. @_@.
Friday, August 14, 2009
地震, 地震, everwhere a 地震
OK, so 3 earthquakes in 6 days and all of a sudden these signs are everywhere around Shinjuku.
Yeah, that's just what I want to see the morning after my alarm clock was replaced with my apartment doing an impersonation of a martini shaker at 5am. Something that reminds me about the current anime based on the end of the world magnitude earthquake that the news keeps telling me we're overdue for.
Also, the Tokyo Toy Show video is not as awesome as to be acceptable to our standards.... (that may mean what you think it means), so it's coming from another source. Stand by.
Yeah, that's just what I want to see the morning after my alarm clock was replaced with my apartment doing an impersonation of a martini shaker at 5am. Something that reminds me about the current anime based on the end of the world magnitude earthquake that the news keeps telling me we're overdue for.
Also, the Tokyo Toy Show video is not as awesome as to be acceptable to our standards.... (that may mean what you think it means), so it's coming from another source. Stand by.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Naruto 10th Anniversary video game preview
-
The next episode of Tokyo Mirror at Animepodcast.net will have game play footage of the upcoming Naruto Shippuden Game: ナルト : 龍刃記.
The next episode of Tokyo Mirror at Animepodcast.net will have game play footage of the upcoming Naruto Shippuden Game: ナルト : 龍刃記.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
