I Carry a Badge; Anime Conventions, and why anime market in America is different from Bollywood

Juxtaposing foreign media segments in the USA, illustrated with Convention Badges

There's another anime blog out there in the massive universe of anime blogs: Anime of Yesteryear, which is worth checking out. Unlike other "yesteryear" type things, this blog isn't simply a retrospective on anime that happens to be from 15 or more years ago; but rather the pieces of American fandom that existed in the proto-phases of the formation of the market as we know it today in America... guess I'll throw Canada in there too.

Oh... Canada.

This material is not only worth significant points in the social fandom system of "I'm more otaku than you," but I hope will also be useful in any case studies that get made regarding this very interesting and turbulent portion of the media industry, which has gone through the highest of highs and lowest of lows like an out of control Fu-Go in a hurricane, reaching amazing heights only to land in an abandoned tire yard in some forgotten part of Minnesota. These are early examples of the type of marketing that was done to grow and create a legitimate market for foreign entertainment media in segments outside the clusters indigenous to the source culture. You can talk about Bollywood in the USA, but who's buying it? It's almost all people from the region where it's produced. Such is not true for Japanese anime. Most of the U.S. market for Latin music was manufactured south of the border as well ("Latin music" in this context meaning productions that are specifically not made in the U.S., with a priority on their own domestic markets). But Japanese animation? That was everybody in terms of demographics (except age demos). The advantage of that is a much larger potential for expanding your market and presence in the overall entertainment industry. The disadvantage is that the "easy-come easy-go" rule applies quite a bit, since there is not a "built in" audience that is going to ipso-facto support productions because of implicit cultural understandings and familiarity induced desire, and thereby aggregating bad years in terms of sales into something fiscally survivable.

As an emerging market, anime was being featured in publications like NY Times, WSJ, Newsweek, Washington Post, and others by 1995. The reason? It was the intense visibility of the "top of the pyramid" of the anime consuming market. Some people might attribute this to The Anime Convention as the cause, but that's not entirely true. There were "conventions" long before the mid 1990's, and although they weren't the "Anime Conventions" we have become used to, the first AX, Otakon, AnimEast, or Katsucon, was not going to be the bait on the hook, in terms of getting MSM attention and then using that attention to build a legitimate face to show the market and potential investors. The true sherpa of anime to the media and business world was the specialty retail entity. A convention was something that happened once a year, and got a puff piece and then that was is, but a B&M location in a major media hub that could provide specific people, events, and information, combined with entrenching itself as a source of information/commentary for all things "Asian pop-culture" whenever a local media source needs a talking head. Combine the home media labels operating in the same place, and you've got a media cycle that mentions something about anime at least once per quarter.

A good solid year of this, led to anime = serious business and acceptance as a true entertainment commodity that could be taken seriously. Only after that, did conventions serve to show people what kind of market anime was in America, how it operated, all that good stuff.

But Conventions were a whole other story for the people who attended them. This is especially true looking at the pre-convention center state of things, where cons took up small sections of hotels, or college campuses.


College
At a certain point as conventions get larger, a connection is lost between the attendees and the convention organization. A loss of the feeling that your presence has direct value not only to the convention, but to the entity that is anime fandom in the USA. These early cons suffered form labor shortages, meaning that the potential for attendees to be called upon to assist in things was greater, and a job well done was it's own reward (most of the time). This would have been impossible if the internet was the same back then as it is now however. With the exception of some minor socializing, there's nothing a convention offers that isn't replaceable by the internet. Think about it, Dealers room, video rooms, panel discussions, news, collecting images, looking at artwork, AMV watching, geeking out and arguing about which version of Chun-li has the better outfit, all that is easier and more plentiful online. You don't need cons anymore for any of the actual activities that they offer other than autographs. So why the continued attendance?

Some of it is obviously market turnover; younger fans come in, older fans go out, and people like Bill O'Reilly get confused about miscommunications. But that's not why people keep coming back at sustainable levels. The reason conventions have grown while other areas like home media have been terrible for anime, is a sociological phenomen, mentioned at the top of this article: Points. Or intense gamification behaviour if you prefer. Otaku are always trying to out-otaku each other, and they see a lot of value in doing this in-person as opposed to online. Winning an internet argument? That's not much, ...but, like pwning some other anime fan IRL w/ ure shiznit-tastic cosplay of that obscure character and use of the word kawaii and desu in a sentence is like such OMFGWTFBBQFF7 levels of otaku-points, that you'll totally plunk down $40 (not to mention pay for transportation and hotel) to engage in dick measuring contests go to a 3 day convention, all the while complaining that a $19.95 SRP on a Summer Wars DVD that you can buy and have forever is too much. No... no one can see you buy that DVD, and thus no upward motion in the fandom stratification can be achieved through that activity. It's the high levels of visibility that gives these fan activities perceived value among attendees, and where can you be more visible to the specific group you are trying to out-fan than at a convention? Nowhere that's where. The major force at work here is called Willingness To Pay.

This kind of thing doesn't really exist in other foriegn entertainment media market segments in the US (like Bollywood films), because there's not really an "I'm more Indian than you" kind of behavior going on within the consumer market. I'm not saying there isn't some "I'm more Indian than you" contest going on somewhere out there, but it's not a driving force shaping that particular segment for the market of this consumer good. Remember when there was all this talk about Bollywood becoming the next big breakout entertainment market and all that? What happened? Lack of gamification opportunities in the general media consuming public = fizzle. That's what happened. You wanna see the PowerPoint? Then pay me, 's what I do for a living.

Getting back to the subjects of Otaku points and Anime conventions:


AnimEast 1994


AnimEast 1995 or Anime East 1995 it seems. There was never another Anime East or AnimEast, though Anime Next is like some sort of distant future descendant. See the footnotes below for more. Bonus points if you can guess which anime the image is from.


Katsucon 1995 You've already seen this...


Katsucon 1997 (Funny thing about 1996, there was this huge snow storm that closed the Jersey Turnpike and I couldn't make it. It wasn't cleared until late Saturday. I did not get a refund... or a free t-shirt... and the hotel charged my ass a fee for not showing up.


Otakon 1995. My Otakon 1994 badge exists, but isn't here, so if anyone has one send a scan and you'll be all special like!


Otakon 1996 still in the tag holder


Otakon 1997 ...I also had a dealer badge from 1997 but I have no idea what happened to it. I think I gave it to someone to get in and out and bring me pizza because there was a Pizza Hut right in the hotel where this things was and it was awesome and blah blah blah


Otakon 1998. Oh look the badges are huge now... and laminated.


Otakon 1999. First year at Baltimore Convention Center.
After this point badges are "meh" but that's ok because after this, my con badges started having "industry" written on them.


The first Anime Central (Acen) 1998. Whoever the Con Chair was that year was a total d-bag.

Anime East / AnimEast:
Anime East should by all rights have been the major East Coast anime con. It was same year as Otakon, in a much bigger market (NYC Metro), much better served in terms of transportation, had access to many dealer/retail accounts, had better PR, better funding, and they even gave out the Tezuka Award Nominations (Or something to do with the Tezuka awards... I forget exactly what, but it was a big deal).

There are 2 reasons out there as to why Anime East is no longer with us: Some say that since Anime East was where Apollo Smile was first unleashed upon the world, it was simply Karmic Retribution to have this event smited by an angry god (smited, smote..?). But then, some say that it was the dirty dealings of one man, whose "take the money and run" move ensured that the funding for 1996 went with him into the shadows, never to be seen again. This is why we can't have nice things.

Some say Martin King (pictured on the right) is that person. This was taken in 1995 at the Anime Crash offices in Manhattan and published in NY Japion. It was when we at Crash were working out sponsorship of the con. The Anime East 1995 badge has the Anime Crash logo on the flip side. There was even talk of Crash becoming a label as early as 1995 in cooperation w/ and acquiring anime with Anime East, but it fell through and we eventually went with martial arts as our first acquisitions for Crash Cinema in 1998.

This con was hard core. Best guest roster by far (New York City is like some kind of enchanted fairy land to the Japanese, and so they were on board like nobody's business), a huge cosplay, big dealers room, great location, and an open bar. They even had their own CCTV channels running on the hotel system so you could watch panels or interviews you may have missed or just check out the AMVs. Seriously. Anime East 1994 was also when I survived on nothing but con-food: Nutra-Grain bars, Candy Corns, and Dr Pepper.

Otakon:
The 1994 convention that by all accounts should have been a campus affair but wasn't, this now megalithic entity started out in a corner of the Days Inn in State College PA. It would stay in State College in 1995 but be held at a place called The Scanticon that year, which seemed like it was from the future. It was a hotel/convention center, and there was a wedding going on at the same time... the reception was nice.

I was at Otakon in 1994, but my badge being somewhere else (I won't be unpacking it any time soon so if you have one send it in or leave a link or something) will not be making an appearance. So instead enjoy the program book cover signed by the only guest who seemed to be around at the time; Robert DeJesus:

(Otakon 1994 program book)

If I get requests, I'll scan the whole thing so you can see what a con-goer from 1994 was in store for. Finally as for Otakon, there's this I made from way back:

Anime Central:
It was 1998, I flew to Chicago, got Kenichi Sonoda's autograph, and then brought him up to the control tower at O'Hare (I know people). I got work done for Crash, slept in the dealer's room, and raided the mini-bar of a convention suite after being exposed to the genuinely terrible behavior of the skeevy Con Chair (whoeverit was in 1998, I don't even remember the d-bag's name). I haven't been back to an Anime Central since.

Katsucon:
Held during the time of year that is definitely not convention season, Katsucon has always seemed the most "fun" of all the cons, and is where I've never had to actually "do" anything. Going to that con was something nice, and the hotel it was in was very cool since some rooms could look into the giant covered atrium. Ever since it split off into Katsucon and the newer Nekocon, I've felt a little split between the two. I find Nekocon a bit more relaxing because of it's size and where it is.

Nekocon 2004. Not my earliest Necko con, I don't think it's the last one I was at either, but it was the favorite year.

There are other conventions to be sure; Anime Boston, Anime Next, BACC, BAAF, NYAF, NYCC, Icon, those tings in Florida, Anime Weekend Atlanta, A-Kon, and Anime Expo. I have never been to Montreal's Otakuthon which is closer to me than AWA, so it makes sense to go.

So the experience is the perceived value, the impetus to part with cash in exchange for the ability to participate in activities that will generate a set of memories based on not only one's own activities but the interpretations of those activities by others either real or imagined. To observe being observed in a unique setting, which can only be substituted in form and not in function.

Unfortunately, until the American market itself can be satisfied with the same kind of delivery mechanism that exists in Japan (ie, anime can actually make revenue on TV because it's not pirated for a month before it airs, people have to actually pay money if they want to buy/read/download manga, and ...well you know), the convention will always mean the cake is a lie. It will just represent how strong anime is in terms of a draw for American otaku but not for doing actual business ... but for the fans to really care about not hurting anime producers by taking stolen goods? That will take something more than making it a source of Otaku peen points.


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Tolkien-Temper-Tantrums, Katsucon Catastrophe, & Funimation vs The Congressman’s Daughter: 3 kinds of "Doing it Wrong"

The Streisand Effect is something that can rarely be used as an effective marketing tool. In the times it has had demonstrable positive effects in marketing, 90% of those instances have been due to retroactive strategy changes, where the instigating party simply comes to terms with the extra attention and does what it can to take advantage of the newfound publicity, rather than continue to fight a losing PR battle. Almost never, can a marketing strategist plan and then successfully implement a Streisand Effect from the ground up. Hence;


#1 Tolkien Temper Tantrum:
Recently, there’s been an anime related blip on the Streisand Effect radar in the form of a fan-produced button with the slogan “While you were reading Tolkien, I was watching Evangelion” that was taken off of Zazzle.com at the C&D behest of the Tolkien Estate. This non-infringing product had long since exhausted its life-cycle in terms of pop-culture buzzmetrics and relevancy in general. It was just another microscopic fleck of dead skin on the pile of old-meme that was the internet from 2009 that no one cared about. Suddenly, in steps the Tolkien Estate with a behavior which violates the unwritten social standards of internet pop-culture community, and boom; it’s viral in the blogosphere. The result being that now, someone like me, who never knew about this has; A) found about it, and B) based on the behavior of Tolkien Estate I am now very motivated to make something for myself with this slogan on it and proudly display it at the next convention I go to. I think you should too.

This is news via BoingBoing.

[Added Mar. 7 2011]
Since I wrote this a while back (these posts are usually written a number of days, sometimes weeks before they're posted using Bloggers ability to schedule auto-uploads), there has been a development in this issue. That development seems to be something along the lines of the Tolkien Estate coming out and stating that they have had no involvement in this situation, and leading to the conclusion that it was Zazzle.com which pulled these things of their own accord. Something later confirmed by Zazzle.com via BoingBoing...apparently. However, in Giro.org's post containing the original Zazzle.com emails, the words "We have been contacted by The JRR Tolkien Estate" clearly appear in their correspondence dated Feb. 23 from "Mike" at Zazzle.com. There are only 3 possibilities as things stand:

1) Zazzle is lying. They were never contacted by the Tolkien Estate, and took it down themselves because someone over there has just learned what copyright infringement is and is taking it too far (see Katsucon Catastrophe below).
2) Tolkien Estste is lying, and backing off real fast to avoid a wrath of the internet type incident, either asking or leaving Zazzle to take the PR hit, with the message that it's Zazzle's doing and not Tolkien Estate, and Zazzle is complying since they... who fucking knows.
3) Giro.org is lying and this has all been concocted as some insanely ballsy method of publicity in the hopes of... who fucking knows.
4) My own opinion/desire is a combo of 1 & 2, being that Zazzle.com knows exactly how this works, and was able to explain to the Tolkien Estate how they might just become the Cook's Source of 2011 in terms of internet wrath... and so they both are back-peddling the hell out of this.

Either which way, I'm done caring about it at this point, thought I still will be wearing a home-made version of this thing to the next con I go to.


#2 Katsucon Catastrophe:
Now, when it’s really “Fair Use” like the above, I am always supportive of this kind of thing and fostering all kinds of creativity. This support usually is something I often extend even when it’s technically over the line of the copyright issue. There are many examples where it’s more beneficial to allow the activity to continue rather than to force a confrontation. Case in point; the Katsucon Artist Alley disaster of 2011. Let’s get the technicalities straight; Most artist alley transactions where people buy things from the artists/vendors are in actual violation of copyright since the character rights are clearly being infringed upon. The fact that an artist drew/painted/sculpted an existing character or a combination of original character in an existing profile, by itself isn’t infringement... until that piece is sold for money. In that case the rights holder is entitled to a portion of that sale, and if there is no existing agreement in place, they can take legal action.

That doesn’t mean shutting down the artist alley is a good idea. Unless you’re selling a hundred pieces of Naruto fan art at $10 each, the small transactions of an artist alley are not something that licensees should think are worth the customer alienation that comes with wielding the bludgeon of "enforcement." But like a college undergrad who just learned something new, Katsucon blundered into this big time due to a lack of real-world knowledge. My own notion is that some staffer (who is probably a pre-law student somewhere), realizes that there’s a technical copyright violation going on, and institutes an over-kill policy, demonstrating a serious lack of knowledge of how this works. I could be wrong, but for some reason I don't think I am. Knowledge is information + experience. Guess which part of that was missing from the thought process of this Katsucon genius... Now because this mess’s Streisand Effect brings unnecessary scrutiny to artist alley activities at conventions in general, it can only lead to problems. Best case scenario is that this just goes away by the time convention season gets into full swing.

My Katsucon 1 (1995) con badge.
Katsucon, I love ya, and I was there in the beginning, but you better not fuck this up for everyone.

#3 The Funimation vs The Congressman's Daughter
Then there are the straight up a-holes who are so steeped in gamification behavior within the fan community, that they will actually hurt the anime business to get e-peen points. While the targets of the litigation aren't the worst offenders, Funimation suing the 1337 to set a proper example of “yes, this is stealing, and this is what happens when you do it” is not surprising, and is only unfortunate in that it takes capital away from Funimation's budget that could otherwise be used to get more anime out. Anime as a commercial product has been seriously hurt by attention whores who make terrible translations and post them online before legit streaming sources make them available merely a few hours later. These lawsuits will win (if legal procedure is done properly) because the law and politics are very friendly to copyright and the billions of dollars it pumps into the economy. Here's a bit on that:

The US Government is in love with Copyright. Some relevant background (Napster case study): In 2001, Napster tried the ridiculous failure that was the “Million Fan March” on Washington DC, as a part of their platform for a complete revision of copyright law, the end goal of which was to make p2p media sharing legal under fair use, and thus clearing the way for Napster to operate on a very large scale, immune from civil actions of music labels and artists. This event, combined with the activities of the Napster D.C. lobby team of Manus Cooney and Karen Robb, was called the “Congressman’s Daughter” strategy. It was the idea that if a member of congress just had their kid show them how Napster worked, they would have some kind of awakening and Congress would make sweeping changes to Intellectual Property laws. Napaster actually put off negotiating a deal with music labels in order to further this strategy, thinking it would work, and then they wouldn't have to deal with labels at all. But the problem is, Congress had just changed I.P. laws, and not in the way Napster wanted. This was the 1998 Mickey Mouse Protection Act, extending the period between creation and entry into the public domain to well over a century in most cases. The law was further cemented into an indelible presence in American jurisprudence with the later 2002 case of Eldred v. Ashcroft. Pile on top of that the DMCA getting through the Senate unanimously in1998, and U.S.A. participation in the GATT Treaty on copyright issues, and it should have been painfully obvious to anyone that this hoped-for outcome of Napster's wasn’t going to happen. The U.S. Government has consistently realized that patents and copyrights are among the top 5 contributors to the entire U.S. economy, with the biggest players in intellectual property issues being Pharmaceutical, Agri-business, and Software entitles, along with Entertainment Media. They all have DC lobbies too... really really big ones.

"Bubble? What do you mean Bubble? Nah, this is totally gonna last forever!"

So the F-1337 don’t have the law on their side, and can only hope public opinion becomes strong enough to serve as a motivation for Funimation to back off, or see if they can sidestep on a legal technicality. And for those of us in the business, it’s very painful to see idiot fans supporting thieving activities because of some perceived entitlement - the "right" to watch anime. It’s not really 100% their fault though, there just isn’t enough information getting through to people to dissuade them that; no, your American otaku demand for HD video perfectly translated commercial-free simulcast foreign TV programs at no cost to you is actually unreasonable believe it or not. The problem is, the way we live doesn’t make that easy to realize. For example; when Verizon was advertising high-speed internet access with the tag-line “download thousands of songs,” they were really hurting things. Downloading 1,000 songs from iTunes is kind of pricey, and Verizon knows that people aren't going to be paying for all those downloads, but they are going to perpetuate the entitlement anyway. The entitlement of “well I just bought a big computer and am paying for broadband, so that’s my investment, and that’s all I should have to be out of pocket” seems to be enough to justify not actually paying for the entertainment media they consume. Again, an internet entitlement notion that only is shown to be completely absurd when applied to a real-world example; “Well I got up out of the house and paid for my subway ride here to the movie theater, so that’s enough of a reason for me to get in without a ticket.” Yes, it’s just that stupid. And no court in the land is going to have sympathy for people who buck the system that greases the wheels of politics.

In this last case, the party who’s “doing it wrong” are the fansubbers, the torrent hosts, and the people defending what they do. When you dabble in piracy, there’s a risk that they’ll nail you. The internet-rage from the ignorant otaku masses is creating a pseudo Streisand Effect in the regular channels, which is just a reminder to the rest of you to play by the rules or risk being #1338.

"...And I helped!" Manga’s contribution to the death of the CCA.

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In the wake of the recent unsurprising news that has finally made it into mainstream media, that MPAA ratings are nothing more than a corporate censorship tool used to maintain entertainment monopolies. The not-so-recent demise of the Comic Code Authority can hopefully offer some helpful insight on how to hasten the end of the for-profit disease that is the genuinely evil MPAA Rating System.

Unfettered by knee-jerk restrictions of 1950's moral panic, manga shows us the heights that American comics could have reached if not for a Godwin-envoking, research-faking maniac (Fredric Wertham, who doe snot deserve the title "Doctor") in the aftermath of the horrific cultural destruction perpetrated by one Anthony Comstock.

The final nail in the coffin often gets too much credit. It signifies the end of an era, entity, or other institution being forced into that long good night either by circumstance, attrition, or social upheaval. It doesn’t really do much though. If you were trapped in a coffin with all the nails in the lid except one, you’d probably stay trapped. No, it’s those first nails that are the truly important and often heroic ones, desperately holding down the coffin lid themselves while that which lies within struggles to break free with all its strength. These “first-nail” endeavors often have their significance muted by the passage of time and the ascendance of a subsequent generation which knows no other world than one where the effects of the “first-nail” efforts might as well have existed forever and all time. Thus, these “final-nail” efforts come to signify the entirety of a struggle in a singular, lasting, well documented, and stationary mote.

To over three (perhaps four) generations, it’s just as impossible to picture the CCA having any real power to change things in publishing, as it is to imagine a world where the color of your skin meant sitting in the back of the bus. We’ve never known a world where the McCarthy-era soaked tenets of this bully pulpit were followed by the publishing industry as absolute unbreakable law. A world where breaking from such obedience to these racist, sex-phobic, misogynistic, paranoid, hyper-puritanical whims, would mean they would put you out of business in an instant. But that was exactly the case of EC Comics:

What, Me Worry?

By the time I was born, let alone old enough to be hauling new comics home from St. Mark’s Comics every Wednesday, the CCA had already passed the event horizon of irrelevance, becoming a lame duck with the publication of Amazing Spider Man #96. The cat (more like paper-tiger) was out of the bag, and Marvel survived publishing a comic without the seal of approval, effectively telling the world that the emperor had no clothes. The CCA desperately tried to amend its code in a very retroactive “I totally meant to do that” fashion, but it was too late.

But though the CCA was shown to be worthless, it wasn’t going to go away any time soon, and they made laughable efforts to evolve. They were still around during the 1980’s, and only by perhaps just a slim margin was the CCA not revived with new strength and legitimacy during the “music scare” of the 1980’s, which brought us the PMRC organization, and first painted the RIAA as the “bad guy” when it came to opinions of pop-culture fans. Thankfully, the “Highlander-style" reinvigoration of power never happened with the CCA, and in the 1980’s, manga started creeping into the commercial comic-shop circuit, all of it sans-CCA label, with ninja-like stealth.

It was acceptable in the 80's

Things trotted along, and no one really worried about that ever shrinking CCA tag in the corner, as it no longer had any value. But the ever present nagging feeling it reinforced; “comics are for kids” and the “living in your parent’s basement” stigma if you were over the age of 14 and still buying them, still clouded the minds of comic readers and non-readers alike. The CCA stamp was a zero-sum entity. All or nothing, no shades of gray like we see in the equally destructive and more powerful MPAA ratings. This fact gave even more substance to the notions that all things published as comics were “for kids,” requiring their precious eyes to be shielded from possible destructive “adult” elements; Elements which belong in novels or films, where there is a system capable of differentiating between the many levels of age-appropriate content... anywhere but comics (think of the children!). But manga was now on the scene, providing narratives and windows into universes so much deeper than the one- dimensional dictates of American CCA approved comics. Slightly more plentiful than before, manga were chock full of CCA violating content like nudity, homosexuality, “liberated women,” successful criminals, nice guys finishing last, gambling, sword-fights, and happy drunk-drinkie time. And by that fact, they actually offered the reader a story where the ending was NOT a forgone conclusion, and therefore, genuinely entertaining.

Left: CCA Approved content
Right: Worse than Hitler (According to "Dr" Wertham)

Then the 1990’s comic bubble happened, and suddenly comics were not entertainment but a financial instrument. This produced three major environmental factors that would have lasting effects both on the CCA and manga itself.

First: Comics were being produced and sold at a record pace. Many people were buying and then selling them without a second thought to the actual content, because they never looked past the cover. A cover that they could care less if the stamp of approval from an organization based on the social values of their grandparents was on it or not.
Second: This rapid buying and selling had publishers scrambling to produce anything, regardless of the narrative or artistic quality (how else can anyone explain Rob Liefeld). This lead to seriously poor quality publications and the endless spinoffs soon generated brand fatigue (or character fatigue) in readers. This led manga being accepted as an alternative to what American comics had become, almost preserving the higher quality narratives that readers had come to expect. This helped give manga a foothold in the third factor.
Third: Extreme retail proliferation. During the boom of the 1990’s, the national comic retail footprint expanded exponentially. I remember in my neighborhood alone, the number of stores you could walk to, went from 1 up to 5 in a single year (after the bust it’s back down to 2). Comic retail was everywhere, and brought with it the “fringe” titles that included all manga, making their way onto the shelves next to the 7 different X-men spinoffs with varying chromium covers vacuum packed with a “limited edition” collectable trading card of Jubilee and 17 pages of ads for Extreme Ranch Doritos, Sega CD games, and Mountain Dew. Sure that issue of Ranma1/2 was a wallet-destroying $4.95, but next to the alternative, it was totally worth it.

Viz's first American release of Ranma 1/2 (issue #1, full color).

Point #3 is the most important here, because with such fierce competition, and the need to sustain sales as comics become a business unto themselves and not simply a product carried at stores that sell other things (drugstores, and so on). The majority of retailers and distributors did not consider the CCA seal as necessary and were happy to carry any publication that didn’t have it if it were part of a successful product offering. This meant that a book that didn’t carry the CCA stamp now had equal footing in the war for shelf space.

What's missing?

After the inevitable comic bust, the seeds planted by manga were watered by the popularity of anime (most American Otaku discovered anime first and then sought out manga, where I was an anomaly seeing manga first and then seeking out anime). From the desolation of the previous bust rose an indie comic scene to rival that of the major publishers, and not only was Japanese manga a large part of that, but after a few years American produced manga-style books starting permeating retail channels via independent labels and independent producers. The choice of appropriate content was put into the hands of the consumer, and not pre-determined by an organization which gleefully exercised its power to censor content, simply for the sake of feeling powerful.

Yes I bought this crap... give me a break, it was a different time.

This was the start of the final leg of the power drain from the CCA, which included the massive success of non-participating Dark Horse and Image Comics, and the withdrawal of Marvel Comics in 2001. Hoards of publishers weren’t even bothering with the CCA, including boatloads of Pokemon comics going out the door, all without the “seal of approval.” This was important in that it literally drained the life-blood of the CCA, and made it impossible to ever be relevant again. Their all-or-nothing way of doing things could never weather the kind of cultural transitions that happen in a country like the USA, nor could it ever weather the kind of rapid evolution in media retail in a country like the USA. The forced censorship of the MPAA and ESRB are more insidious and difficult to dislodge because they have gradient levels, but it’s only a matter of time before theaters stop giving a crap about ratings, but given what's happened with the downright criminal censorship of The King's Speech, it still may be a while before theaters stop giving a crap about MPAA ratings in favor of selling tickets. When films and games are bought and consumed exclusively by the end-users (as they soon will be via digital distribution), the MPAA and ESRB will become worthless as well. We can see that process in action at the moment with the once powerful now irrelevant PMRC, who’s “Tipper Sticker” has in effect been thoroughly murdered by P2P sharing, iTunes, and music streaming services.

This is why nobody likes you and you're going to die alone Tipper!

It only took a bit over 50 years, but this power-hungry censorship organization, the product of McCarthy era fear mongering, and predicated on a medical hoax by a misogynist doctor, has finally been rightfully buried in irrelevance. ...and manga helped.

やった！

Sip some Champaign in celebration, and keep up the good fight.

Do you have any stories from 1990's English language manga collecting? Share them with us here, share them with the internets for otaku e-points... you'll feel better.

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Fools, You Know Not What You Do: How American Otakus are going to use Tanaka's RIETI Report to make themselves look stupid.

As much as I love statistics and business and the like, I can’t go into the veracity of this report as much as I would like to, but rather make the following, zero-sum, blunt, inescapable point to the American Otaku out there because I know what you're thinking:
NO.

Just stop right there.

Headline: Internet Piracy Boosts Anime Sales, Study Concludes. Reality: No. Well maybe, but just in Japan. With American otaku already loading their own petards for a strong self-hoisting with the strength of all the self-righteous uninformed opinion of a birther, one can hardly expect my efforts at damage control to be of any effect. These people who hurt the anime/manga market outside Japan with fansubs and scanlations will see what they want to see, and think they do no wrong. The happily smug reaction that American Otaku (Clarissa at AWO, I'm looking at you) will feel in their misplaced vindication is no doubt to be so thick, that no light of fact or reason shall be able to cut through it, and thusly such illumination shall be felt by only a precious few (Daryl at AWO I'm looking at you). It is in the hopes that I can reach said special precious few who can further illuminate the true meaning of the RIETI report that I am writing this here.

If you don’t know what the Tanaka RIETI report on anime piracy is ... just follow the link to the story I'm not going to recap the thing here. The story itself (not the report) exemplifies the aforementioned problem. It does a great disservice by inaccurately equating this report's findings to the Funimation lawsuits, and simply garners its information from what seems to be only the English description of the report itself:

Whether or not illegal copies circulating on the internet reduce the sales of legal products has been a hot issue in the entertainment industries. Though much empirical research has been conducted on the music industry, research on the movie industry has been very limited. This paper examines the effects of the movie sharing site Youtube and file sharing program Winny on DVD sales and rentals of Japanese TV animation programs. Estimated equations of 105 anime episodes show that (1) Youtube viewing does not negatively affect DVD rentals, and it appears to help raise DVD sales; and (2) although Winny file sharing negatively affects DVD rentals, it does not affect DVD sales. Youtube’s effect of boosting DVD sales can be seen after the TV’s broadcasting of the series has concluded, which suggests that not just a few people learned about the program via a Youtube viewing. In other words YouTube can be interpreted as a promotion tool for DVD sales.

That's all some people are going on. Lots of people commenting on this can’t read the report. This is literally judging a book by its cover, and then writing book reviews as well.

Seeing this, it is easy to be drawn to the conclusion that this somehow applies to English speaking markets. It does not. This study only encompasses sales and after-market piracy within the domestic Japanese market. While it’s nice to think that English speaking markets somehow play any role which can have an effect on the producers of anime/manga in cases like this, it is because of piracy circumventing and preempting licensed distribution that they do not. So let me say this again, the report is not applicable to English speaking markets (or any markets outside Japan). However it is reasonably detailed, rather specific, and looks like this:


It asserts a specific point about anime DVD sales and rentals in Japan. Regardless of veracity, these conclusions cannot be superimposed to the USA or any other market in which the legitimate media delivery channels are preempted by people who steal the work and make it available for free in the form of fansubs and scanlations. In Japan, these properties do not have to worry about online bootlegging BEFORE the episode airs on TV. Because of this, they can make pre-agreed advertising agreements, accurately predict revenue, and start a genuine product lifecycle for a property.

This devaluing effect that anime piracy in the form of fansubs and scanlations in international markets has is very real and I have detailed it before. I have also noted that without the ability to sustain the regular needs of a business, international markets will have no input in the type of anime and manga that are produced, leading to a Galapagos effect in the type of stories that evolve. Some have argued that it is because anime/manga are “different” from American media is the reason they do like it so much, but Turkish Tapdancing is “different”... the South African Vuvuzela Philharmonic Laser Light Show is “different.” The quality of “different” is in no way the exclusive deciding factor in why people in English speaking markets like Japan's anime/manga. It is that, along with a combination of other qualities, which causes the popularity of such material and changes in what the Japanese market likes could easily change that balance to the point where although it remains “different,” fails to resonate with audiences outside Japan. That is a real possibility.

The Japanese DVD market is miniscule compared to the USA. It really is a different universe. Where as in the USA, some labels exist only as home media entities, the Japanese DVD labels don’t go through the licensing and localization dance to get a title out (for their domestic anime obviously, not for Hollywood productions). Additionally, media consumption habits (both legit and pirated) of consumers in general create a very different animal in terms of commercial markets between Japan and the USA. This difference in media consumption created a very different set of metrics and mechanics which going into detail about would simply lead to a post of biblical tl;dr proportions. So let's just call it a case of "apples and oranges."

To conclude; In Japan, anime/manga productions FIRST reach the market through a legitimate media distribution channel (TV broadcast, online/mobile download, direct to DVD, etc.) and are then pirated. In the USA anime/manga productions are pirated FIRST, and then (because of the time it takes to license and localize) released through legitimate media distribution channels. Do we understand?

Japan:-----Commercial release --> then --> Pirated.
USA:__----Pirated --> then --> Commercial Release.

That difference is the game changer. In international markets, the fact that the target audience has already consumed an anime/manga before a license can be obtained for that market, means that said license is worthless. Fansubbers and Scanlators are stealing the license that the original producers have every right to sell. The fact that they (fansubbers and scanlators) don’t charge anything means nothing, because the damage done to animators, artists, writers, assistants, and publishers is the same as if they were selling bootleg DVDs at $100 a pop. They are actually worse than for-profit bootlegers because they honestly believe they are doing nothing wrong.

It is true that Japanese production companies have constantly and incorrectly harped that if piracy just went away everything would be sunshine and smiles, which is a very Japanese thing to do. Every Japanese industry and political party does that. Additionally, half of the major entertainment execs in Japan have no idea what youtube really is, but just know it's part of that big scary internet. But in case you weren't paying attention, that's totally beside the point. This publication is going cause a problem in American fandom, by giving a moral ego boost to people who know they are hurting the business that creates the things they love, and they’ll take that boost because they want to think what they are doing is helping. And nothing said or done, will assuage their misplaced self-granted absolution.

This is no "get out of jail free card" for fansubers, scanlators, and the American Otaku that keep them around. No matter how much they want it to be.

ANN also helpfully points out that this is a paper by Tetsuo Tanaka, published by RIETI, and is not specifically all encompasing of RIETI's official platform (which is a political force to be rekoned with at times). It is also important to note that Professor Tanaka had already expressed some views to the same effect as the paper's findings, so this may be a case of some tunnel vision.


[July 17 2011]: Just in case anyone was wondering, I added that little stop-sign graphic because I was sick of the thumbnail on the top 5 posts being almost impossible to make out. This looks a little better.
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Antarctic Press takes a gamble, steps into Sarah Palin's crosshairs?

Repeating History: Antarctic Press once again fails to understand fair use.

So long time manga publisher Antarctic Press, the company that brought us Ninja High School, Gold Digger, and all kinds of furry abominations, came out with this gem:

Can "Furry Sarah Palin" be far behind?
Doing this is a bad idea because Antarctic Press seems to not have been able to learn the harsh lessons of its own past. Way back in 1994, they got nailed for publishing hentai doujinshi of characters they didn’t own the rights to (Dirty Pair) under the name H-Bomb, and like that crazy aunt that keeps betting the kids school lunch money at Bingo, they don’t seem to realize they have a serious problem. The original incident is detailed a bit more in this episode of Anime World Order by none other than MEEEEE, so go take a listen (it's 6min 50seconds in).



I can't find the H-bomb cover out there, but the hypno-butt says you don't mind.

Now it would seem as if AP is making another mistake as to where the line actually is drawn when it comes to protected parody and fair use.

I can already hear the weaboo-tards now going “nuh-uh! That’s totally protected and fair use like an AMV or fanfick and she’s a public figure and blah blah blah!” Shut the crap up. Weaboos know dick about copyright. Here’s why it’s not covered legally:

This whole thing is a for-profit commercial enterprise. You wanna play, you gotta pay.

Yes, you can draw as many pictures of Sarah Palin as you want w/o any licensing, and they can be in subject anywhere from super flattering to downright obscene. Yes you can write and or distribute these to anyone you want to... until you start making and selling merch with her likeness for profit. Then copyright comes into play.

Antarctic is looking at a potential major issue here because:

1) They are charging money for this comic and distributing it as a commercial FOR-PROFIT product. This isn’t some political cartoon in a newspaper. Sara Palin the Person/Brand is the foundation of this product, so unlike something that uses political likenesses, like the long running and painfully unfunny Doonesberry, the use of Palin's image in this isn't protected by Hustler v. Falwell as some have speculated (which was about libel anyway). Palin has no real lible case, but has a really good civil copyright angle and the fallout is just going to be about royalties. Antarctic isn't in criminal danger, but still putting themselves in very real legal danger of injunctions and expensive civil judgements.

2) They mention Sarah Palin by name. Of all the titles in the AP political releases, this is the only one that’s not far enough in the grey area (remember that pr0n changed the spelling just enough). Palin is a person and also more importantly a very powerful BRAND. She’s also a private citizen and not a politician (for the moment). There is NO DIFFERENCE between this comic and making another commercially sold comic like “THE ADVENTURES OF MICHAEL JORDON” and using his likeness and the logo of the Chicago Bulls without getting the rights to do that first. You do that and see how long it takes you to get sued. There is something like that happening now with Lebron James, but in that case, all the licensing has been done properly.

3) Palin is a media whore. The moment she’s sensed she’s been too far out of the spotlight, she’s gonna fire up the legal team and sue the crap out of Ben Dunn and the whole of Antarctic, just for the extra publicity. Win or lose, the legal nightmare alone is gonna hurt Antarctic, and it's a perfect opportunity for Palin to get back in the news withouth having to mention the word ARIZONA.

I can't bring myself to think that Antarctic Press is actually under the impression that fair use and parody are keeping them indemnified on thisk, but as I've stated, they have done this kind of thing before. I would like to think they’re just taking a gamble that the Palin camp is gonna let this one slip by. That’s not gonna happen because; see previous point #3. This thing is already being fed into the 24hr news cycle and in 5 minutes the whole world is gonna know about it. They’re already walking a dangerous line with the commercial Obama stuff, which has already become an issue from previous instances, and this Palin thing is not going to go in AP's favor if it goes to court. Antarctic would have a better chance if they just made a comic out of YOU and your wacky adventures (yes you reading this right now), since you probably have a smaller legal team.

I could be completely wrong if the Palin camp actually signed some sort of deal with Antarctic Press. I haven’t picked up my copy yet but something tells me there isn’t any agreement in place.

I did a lot of comic trading back in the buble and even once mentioned it in a previous post, so my advice is to buy this thing. Buy as many as you can and see what you can do on the short sell (meaning wait for this to get mentioned on CNN and FOX and your local news, then plaster them all up on eBay). Because the C&D letters are probably gonna start flying, and not just to AP, but to Diamond, and some of the larger retailers, which will rip them off the shelves. This thing is going to be worth at least a few bucks over cover for the novelty/controversy (probably not much more though, once the shitstorm dies down). I would actually take one to an inevitable upcoming Palin book signing/campaign stop and ask for a signature. If you do that, be prepared to not only get bounced from the event, but dollars to doughnuts says her private security will try to confiscate the thing from you as well.

So once again the Hong Kong cinema bootleg mentality has reared its head in terms of manga in America (I know it isn’t what fans would call “manga,” but AP is a company that’s done more for manga in America, more than a lot of people would care to acknowledge).

This could be the final screw up for AP though, and their final contribution to pop-culture history could very well be their actually becoming history thanks to this. Ah Antarctic Press, you were always in the room, but still we hardly knew yee.

You thought I was kidding about Furry Sarah Palin didn't you...

5 Reasons Harry Potter should be dead. A non-news pop culture post

This is a joke post, and not the kind of thing I usually blog about. If this is your first visit to this blog, please read the other posts if you want serious insignt into the anime and licensing business.

I was struck with inspiration back in December and wrote this down over a few minutes. Then I noticed this video over at Cracked.com, and figured I'd throw this out there.

5 REASONS HARRY POTTER SHOULD HAVE BEEN KILLED BY NOW:

1) Hagrid is an idiot.In the very beginning of the first film, Dumbledore clearly states that he’d “trust Hagrid with his life” basically without a second thought. Yet only a little further into the very same film, not only is Hagrid giving Harry and his friends the dirt on the Sorcerer’s Stone, its former owner, and exactly how to bypass the monster that guards it, but in the very same sentence we find out that he’s been giving out these little tidbits in darkened corners of Victorian wizard-pubs to just about anyone who buys him a drink. Need to find the secret entrance to Dumbledor’s office? It’s nothing that plopping down a magical beanie baby and a few double Jagermeisters in front of Hagrid won’t get you. Combine that cognitive deficit with the penchant he has for bringing all manner of deadly creature into exactly where he’s not supposed to, and you’ve got the living breathing reason why Hogwarts School spends more on insurance than the entire damage control budget of B.P.

With a track record like that, it’s a miracle that all of Hogwarts hasn’t been destroyed in a terrifying series of explosions involving giant spiders, unicorn blood, and the militant wing of the House Elf Liberation Front.

2) Ron is an idiot too.
From almost killing Harry and himself by driving a flying car into a very non-flying train in the 2nd film, to acting like a drooling idiot when Harry and Hermione disappear and then reappear almost instantly in front of him through use of a time turner in Prisoner of Azkaban (seriously Ron, you go to fucking wizard school, and you act as if that’s the first magical shit you’ve ever seen!) this ginger coat-tail rider has only helped Harry stay alive through his dumbfounding ineptitude, which causes him to inadvertently become a human shield by stepping directly into harm’s way at just the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) time. In a single film (Half Blood Prince), Ron shows himself to be someone who is extremely susceptible to the placebo effect, while at the same time incredibly unconcerned about eating an entire box of random mystery chocolates left for Harry, who he KNOWS has a whole hoard of dark wizards hell-bent on killing him. Let’s not forget that this was AFTER the whole Barty Crouch Jr infiltration, so there’s no excuse for not being more careful. That’s like Anthrax showing up at your sensitive government office tomorrow, and the first thing you do is sprinkle it over your donut thinking it must be powdered sugar.

So in Deathly Hallows, are you telling me that THAT Ron Weasley is gonna have the wherewithal to track down Harry and arrive just as he is drowning under the ice of a frozen pond in the middle of nowhere and heroically drag him to safety? Sorry Ron, but even with ten deluminators, the best GPS in the world, 3 Sherpas, and the transporters from The Starship Enterprise, the best you could hope for is to end up face down under the ice with Harry, dragging him down like a lanky redheaded boat anchor while your face gets frozen in that surprise-horror look you make at least once per film.

(seriously kid, you’re gonna die with that look on your face).


3) Voldimort is NOT an idiot.
Don’t get us wrong, Voldie is a slightly unbalanced evil mastermind and likes being in the driver’s seat, and likes being the center of attention, and being the one with the most power, and torturing the weak, and killing muggles, and …well you get it. But he’s not stupid, and the powerful leader of a murderous organization with the singular goal of world domination isn’t going to throw away a chance to lock in his ultimate victory through the death of his arch nemesis, just because it might be someone else who pulls the damned trigger. This guy is perfectly willing to have a child Harry’s age assassinate Dumbledore, and is constantly delegating orders of violence and mayhem to one division of his followers or another. If one of his minions (or a bad case of food poisoning for that matter) killed Harry, the only thing Voldimort would do is take slightly longer to pop the cork on the wizard champagne.

Look, Al Capone’s always associated with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, but he wasn’t anywhere near the thing when it happened. King Xirxies didn’t personally kill and then chop the head off of Leonidas, he left that to the hired help. Even Charles Manson had other people get their hands bloody with that whole murdering thing, while he hung out back in his drug-filled naked hippie shack having a good time. History’s most badass crime bosses have always known how to delegate and be comfortable with it. The notion that Voldimort would somehow put his entire operation on hold and issue standing orders that no one else is allowed to kill the one person that he wants dead more than anything, just doesn’t make any f-ing sense. There’s no reason what so ever that an evil genius with the foresight of placing 7 "get out of death free cards" here and there (just in case he’d need them later on) would end up behaving like a retarded version of Captain Hook. In fact he doesn’t, and when Wormtail has the chance to off Harry Potter and hesitates for all of 5 seconds, that enchanted fake had of his reaches up and pulls a Luca Brasi on that tubby bastard for NOT killing HP fast enough. Voldie wants HP dead so badly, that he’s probably even willing to partner with any allies he can find if it helps to get it done.


(Even Hitler and Stalin were BFFs up until they ran out of group projects).

And these allies would even include...

4) Muggles:
Muggles outnumber magic people quite a bit, and Harry has got to spend at least half the year putzing around Little Whinging surrounded by all kinds of muggle-ness, while his only protection consists of spells which seemingly are only able to stop magical crap, and being watched over by the occasional auror. Granted, an auror isn’t someone you want to go up against if you are planning on zapping someone with blue lightning from a small wooden stick, but with the majority of wizard-world denizens unable to tell the difference between an iPod and a hand grenade, a straight up muggle style assassination seems like a slam dunk.

Why send a Dementor to attack Harry on the playground when some experienced ex KGB hitman can empty an entire AK-47 into Harry’s face before anyone even knows what’s going on? Why worry about some magic charm, when you can just have a fake delivery guy show up at the door and stab Harry through the lungs when he goes to sign for it? Even if you didn’t want to go full ninja, you could at least have a P.I. track him down the old fashioned way, which would lead you to...


5) The Dursleys:
This clan of degenerates perfectly fit the notion of an incredibly depraved English version of American Trailer Trash (whatever that may be in British... like weglyjads or hizzlegumps). The Dursleys are the kind of people you expect to see show up on the local late night news for sabotaging a rollercoaster because their kid is too fat to ride it, or setting the neighbor’s dog on fire in retribution for some imagined offense that only makes sense to them. They obviously have nothing but vicious contempt for Harry Potter and everything he stands for, and zero scruples when it comes to actually caring what happens to him. The only motivation they seem to have in tolerating him at all is a fear of Dumbledore or whoever coming along and ruining their day if anything happens to Harry.

Remember how in the wizard world, kids basically fling around solid gold Krugerrands to buy candy bars with and such, and no one even bats an eye? Well here in muggle-land that kind of mad grip will pretty much elevate you to “Saudi Prince” levels of entitlement enabled douchebaggery. Do you really think that the Dursleys aren’t the type to accept a sack full of solid gold coins in exchange for leaving the doors unlocked when going away over a long weekend so Voldie can send some enforcers in there to straight up murder the hell out of Harry’s ass with brass knuckles and a cricket bat? Carlo didn’t even get that much in exchange for getting Sonny to the tollbooth.




There... ok. Got that out of my system.

Identity Crisis, what does "Otaku" mean?

The label of “Otaku” and what it means for community and industry.

For the sake of clarity let’s just stick to the strictly American definition of “Otaku.”

Long ago, there was a Ninja Consultants podcast which asked if one of the hosts, Erin, could be both a hipster and otaku at the same time. My answer was yes, but thanks to the late hour of the recording session (and totally not because of that vodka I drank), I wasn’t able to articulate why I came to that conclusion, even though I was the only one who thought so. Recently I had a little epiphany about how to correctly explain how one can be a hipster and otaku at the same time. My inspiration came from an incident about a week ago, where I was actually able to spot a purebred douchebag in the wild.

A Douchebag in the wild. Crikey!
Mmmmmm, smell that TAG Body Spray.
The train was moving, so the photo isn’t great... but still, just look at that.

From the retarded looking sunglasses in the subway, to the sneakers that are trendy enough to get into the night club, this guy had the whole d-bag gambit covered. Energy drink, hoody under a sport coat, stupid hair, giant ring, and the date-rape apology flowers, all combine to make this an amazing find so far from Jersey Shore territory.

“Hipster” is basically the same, a hollow vapid set of criteria that are the result of specific and quantifiable brand profiles and manifested marketing matrices in the deliberate choices in outward appearance and social activity of the individual. Though the Hipsters themselves will tell you the opposite and insist that they are so indie that their shirt don’t fit. They project this outward appearance and subscribe to a limited set of behaviors because the commercial media they consume has told them to. The true irony of the term “hipster,” is that it singularly describes a very specifically defined market demographic cluster.

“Otaku” is not like that. While “Hipster” and “Douchebag” define specific singular groups defined by the multiple aspects they project, “Otaku” labels a diverse group unified only by a singular activity of liking anime and manga. So “Otaku” is too diverse and too broad to be an effective target of concerted marketing efforts. This is not to say that there is no top of the pyramid within this group, just look at anime conventions. But even at these conventions, while the lion’s share of attendees do fit into a rather narrow demographic set (age and so on), if you really look at who’s there, you’ll see many different clusters which respond to very different marketing.

It is impossible for Otaku and Hipster to be mutually exclusive, because the defining activities one can engage in to be both to not conflict or cancel each other out. So although it’s very possible to be one and not the other, this is not a zero-sum situation, much in the same way that people of the same ethnicity or nationality can be different religions.

This isn’t “indefinability” or even “intangibility” that makes Otaku a valuable thing that can’t be fully penetrated by commercial marketing mechanics, but rather this quality of formlessness (yeah, I know all those words are next to each other in the Thesaurus). "Otaku" as a phenomenon is like water, in the sense that it takes the shape of whatever vessel it’s in, and so as a business, you’re marketing to that more definable vessel, not the Otaku-ness inside. This is why Apollo Smile and similar creations have failed in the past. The imagined target cluster is actually a combination of other clusters that have a more dominant role in customer behavior. This was the true source of that flavor of disingenuous which seemed to cover everything that Apollo was. Much like the buzzword new media marketers will talk about "organic brand creation," the only effective brand ambassador entities that can be called “Otaku” are ones that come from bottom-up and not top-down. Being an otaku is going to be a lot less fun if that quality is ever taken away, since the obvious logical thing it’s going to turn into is “Weaboo,” a terrifying prospect to say the least. But like the term “Hipster,” “Otaku” is sometimes intentionally used when describing one’s self, and also deliberately not used by other people, so it's got that going for it at least.

Again, all of this is prefaced on my own definition of Otaku for this particular case, which is not the Japanese definition (which is horrifying) and of which there exist English speaking examples like this freak here. (That link is dead because the nutjob who made it got all butthurt, but you can see bits of it here ... the crazy starts about 1:45 in).  He's obsessed with a jpop star he'll never ever be in the same room with). Yes that’s real and yes that’s 11 kinds of messed up. I would define “Otaku” here as a combination of media consumption habits, accumulated knowledge, and some other stuff. I hesitate to get too far into defining it with quantitative measurements, which leads to the problem I just mentioned of what happens of Otaku loses its portability between other groups. That is the strength which keeps this term out of the realm of being a commoditized managed-brand, and as much as I like business, I am happy to leave “Otaku” right where it is, an intangible product of the collective identity of fans.

See, an Otaku can have this in their office, and Hipsters don't work in offices (they write indie music while keeping the beard hairs off of their ironic ipads while being noticed by other hipsters and the occasional member of the stroller mafia at coffee houses). ...actually, I don't know what happened to this thing... it's gotta be around somewhere.
- I actually did have a much more thorough written explination with some ven diagrams based on actual data from icv2 and some Japanese sources, along with trend and perception mapping... but then I realized that that's giving it away for free. So if you want them, I'll send them your way when the check clears.

Stupid is as Stupid Does; Japan / US relations after Wikileaks

Anti-whaling shenanegans make things worse, not better.

Another circular point, but it's probably worth it to keep reading.

OK, real quick, one more time; "hey rest of the world, you can't tell Japan what to do." In the history of the world, Japan is a country that's only given into absolute ultimatums exactly once, and that case involved nuclear weapons. The retarded antics of the Sea Shep-tard are so painfully obvious as counter productive, that its South Park moment has come and gone, but much like the true power behind the one ring to rule them all, the mote that is the source of this particular stream of stupid are well hidden within cultural illiteracy.

The Not-Guilty Perspective

There is disinformation ging out on both sides, indicitive of a complete abandonment of any kind of sense of reality based compromise and have devolved into some slobbering conflict of absolutes. Neither side is going to be able to bring this to a quick end now. Anti-whaling forces would be happy if you conjoured up mental images of endangeres species being hauled up onto the deck of a boat and dismembered while their relatives are forced to look on while Cruella Deville looks on and cackles. Now, the hunding, killing, and processing of these whales isn't pretty, but two things to remember; 1) Minke are not endangered (and are also delicious), and 2) This criticism is coming from Australia. A country that spends government money encouraging people to kill and eat it's own national symbol. That's right, Australia, who doesn't like Japanese whaling and whale meat for an almost non-existant whale meat market not in Australia, is wholesale offering KANGAROO MEAT as fun for the whole family. I wonder what it looks like when they poke holes in their necks so the blood can drain out and then rip their skin off so they can bring us this:

Double Standard Alert! ...Fire up the barbie.

I'm bringing this up to show the absurdity of the notion that somehow a Whale outranks a Kangaroo in the "humans are gonna eat us" lottery, even when that animal has the status of a National Symbol goin' for it. It'd be the same as if Chick-Fill-A USA offered fried Bald Eagle and then sent idiots into Canada to tell them to stop hunting Caribu. Yes, it's exactly that stupid, and the reaction is going to be exactly what you think it is. Australia killes 2 Million Kangaroos for meat in a single year, where the number of whales killed by Japan and Korea in the same year is under 2,000. So it would seem that the life of one whale is worth like... 1,000 Kangaroos? Are we going by weight, or intangible animal souls or something?

The Guilty Perspective

Japan went through some very terrible times right after the end of WWII. Ever see the end of Grave of the Fireflies where those two kids starve to death? Yeah, that was happening a lot. In order to avoid that, the government was introduced to a great source of food that was easy to get. Whale meat. And guess which country provided the dessimated Japanese merchant navy with everything they needed to hunt those floating bento factories? Hint: it wasn't Mexico.


But does any of that really matter any more? No, not really. There's lots of other food to get, whale meat isn't popular and it's expensive, and in reality it's bad for you because of pullution in the oceans. The Japanese "scientific reasearch" excuse is such BS and everyone knows it. But like the classic Tail Spin episode where the Sea Duck was mistaken for a flamingo because of simply being labeled so, if it's labeled that, then it is that, even if it's not. That's how Japan works. Like many things Japanese the government turns a blind eye to (read this), the basic strategy was to just put aside some patient hope this issue will go off and die a quiet un-noticed death. ...and now the Discovery Channel has put this shit so far in the spotlight it's going to take 10 years for this issue to go back to where it was in 2005. It's become a high-profile, wedge issue that has entrenched itself into the Japan vs The World "Culture War" similar to the French and the battle over Foie Gras.

Kobayashi Yoshinori’s whaling manga (dead Kangaroos on the lower right).

Now, Kobayashi is a wing-nut moonbat who was probably driving one of those black van "expell the foriegner" protests that used to park outside my apartment on Yasukuni Dori (not for little old me, but because this was across the street). But his level of crazy is not the point. The point is that HIS point is powerful enough to push things to extremes on the domestic Japanese end while Paul Watson's douchebaggery is pulling the extreme on the other end. The end result is that this issue gets further and further away from a quickly feasable solution in a very Carl Rove like fashion.

The Peanut Gallery: How this relates to anime

The only reason I'm bringing any of this up, is that (I forget where I was, it might have been online) but I was involved in a conversation with an idiot otaku who said something along the lines of they were going to "stop downloading manga and anime" in protest of this Japanese whaling thing. That's right, in an effort to somehow hurt the Japanese economy, this person was going to stop STEALING from it. And this is the real problem that anime and manga face from the rest of the world. This otaku (and many others) are under the rediculous impression that their consumption, appreciation, and enjoyment of this media they acquire without paying for it, somehow in and of itself adds some sort of tangible value to the creators.

So here we have this person, who basically thinks they are taking some sort of tangible value away from a company that provided a property that they were consuming illegally. How exactly that was supposed to work, they couldn't articulate, but their head was still thick enough to resist actual logic and the realization that their fandom adds zero value and makes zero revenue to the vast commercial process of creating an anime or manga. The sense of intellectual vacancy in this kind of thing is overwhelming. This person hasn't vowed to not buy a Toyota, or pull their investments from Japanese firms... nope, just stop doing something that adds no value to the Japanese economy in the first place.

Otaku may have an emotional connection to anime, manga, and the various character goods that go with them, but you're not a customer if you're looking at scanlations, you're less than worthless to the manga artists, their assistants, and the publishing staff. You may as well be a Kangaroo, waiting to be blead to death and cut up, cooked, and served at a charity dinner to raise money to buy new equipment for the Sea Shepherd.

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