Leaving Japan

Japan; Love / Hate / Meh.

It seems as if I am destined to return to the USA and soon. Losing the all powerful otaku street-cred that comes from living it Tokyo is one of the few things I’ll miss about this place. In all honesty, I’d probably stay if I could (read; “could stay with a career and salary sufficient enough to maintain a specific standard). That shouldn’t bee too hard, and if I was more motivated I am sure I would have accomplished that already. Tokyo is nice, but the fact that I can once again no longer have my windows open because of the construction going on across the street (now in it’s 16th month) simply sends in too much noise and dust. ...at least it’s not 100 degrees out anymore.

About 10 years ago, I was in this exact same situation almost. Living in Japan, just finished a degree, and looking at returning to New York with an uncertain future, spending a few months of doing nothing until finally getting to work again at a company which was best described as an airplane that never left the gate, but the pilots kept announcing the cruising altitude anyway until we ran out of fuel. Leaving Japan then was the first of a long line of life-destroying mistakes lasting almost a decade. Now the reset button has been hit, and I am looking at the horrific and inescapable fact that the worst events I’ve gone through are about to be thoroughly repeated. A few years ago, I’d care about that, and it might have served as a great motivation to get out there and do whatever it took to stay, but those days were dead and gone long before coming to Japan in the first place.

So yeah, I’m kind of just on autopilot and need to snap out of it. Maybe being back in New York before the end of October (and it may be permanent), might get that to happen.

Naruto is a Chicken... Your argument is invalid.

Life in Japan:

So in the universe of product tie-ins that involve Japanese convenience stores and anime, Lawson is now offering fried chicken nuggets packaged with their famed chicken mascot "Karaage-kun" seemingly cosplaying as Naruto. There's nothing special about the actual contents of the package, but of course, after doing a deep dive consulting session for Lawson, I just feel too drawn to getting one. So here it is, the latest anime thing to be found at convenience stores. (this is no longer true though, since the Sunkus in the lobby just started selling limited edition Dragon Ball Z figures).





Actually, the only tie-ins that I am always guaranteed to fall for are the Lupin III ones. A while back, I had to drink 12 Roots Black Aroma cans (the big ones) over the course of 4 days to get the whole promotional set. I am watching Green vs Red as I write this, and it almost makes up for not being at Otakon. ...almost.



In the last scene of Green vs Red, they chase the new Lupin through Shinjuku down Yasukuni Avenue. I live on Yasukuni Ave in Shinjuku, and I can hear police sirens outside right now... cool.


Tokyo... Sometimes, it actually doesn't suck.


Like today.




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OTAKON 2010

Anyone going to Otakon 2010 can you pick me up a t-shirt (XL) and a program book? I am very much the opposite of happy that I am not going to be there.

Thanks for the quick reply.


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You've got red on you: Zombie Apocalypse and the anime counter-argument.

In re-reading the previous post, I was all of a sudden reminded that there's a significant example of the exact type of "solution" evolving out of the current gulf between anime markets. High School of the Dead, is airing at just about at the same time in Japan and the US, (or at least as close as reasonably possible, I mean really). Now, good on them for doing that, it's really one of the only ways that anime can circumvent the erosion of sustainability in the US market which comes from fansubs devaluing licenses. However, this is an example of the embryonic stage of that, and is in no way going to be a final template for how to do this. I'm sure that American fans have become so used to consuming fansubs, that there are pirated copies on the internet still serving the exact same people that the Anime Channel is counting on watching through their own distribution channels (either cable or online). It's going to take an ongoing pattern of this type of distribution to make a real dent in this problem, and this title is not only just the beginning, but by nature of it being first on the learning curve, it's also a weak example.

I've been doing my best to catch High School of the Dead at 2am here in Tokyo, and therein lies problem#2. I don't know when the Anime Network airs this thing (I just don't feel like looking it up), but I am fairly certain that the first siring does not happen at 2am. Now for those of you thinking that the reason for a 2am time slot is because of content, it's really not. The same cable package that gets you AT-X gets you plenty of other content in the middle of the day which makes the boobie-jiggle and brain smashing factor of HSOTD look pretty tame (though that is a portion of the explanation for 2am). Sure it's not for kids and could be on late, but there is no way this property can compete with the more valuable programming that's on at 11. So it ends up at 2am because the top of the pyramid is going to be committed enough to follow it there, and everyone else is not necessarily a group that can be counted on. So, the HSFTD pull factor might be stronger in the US than Japan, and now we come back to the cultural divide, where the top anime programs in Japan only have a few which also occupy a major spot in the US market (DragonBall, One Piece, all that).

To talk about High School of the Dead itself, it's been a long time since I've gotten into an anime series enough to stay up to 2am, but this one looks worth it. Smashing zombies is fun, oppai are fun, and the mid to high level of Japanese youth angst isn't actually the driving force of the story. I am sure it's being censored to high-heaven on American TV so I would be interested to see how the DVDs end up. I don't like to buy DVDs in Japan, because they are just much more expensive, so whenever I see a Japanese movie I like, I check to see if there's a US release first. If there is, I just add it to my list of "pick it up when I go back home" and wait for my next trip over. However, if it is censored (Kill Bill anyone?) I'll go out of my way to get the original work of art to make my own decision about it, not deal with the version destroyed by the MPAA or FCC. That being said, I think the sexualized scenes in the series are a bit overboard, but at least I can make that decision for myself.

But this series is worth checking out if you like zombie flicks(there have already been references to Shaun of the Dead and Zombie Land) and some animation that is a real step above the rest in terms of quality. The only downside, is that the series uses a lot of flashbacks of the same footage to save money. But it's still totally worth it. Also, look what I found.

WTF Japan;

So sometimes Japanese TV works a bit differently in terms of commercial breaks. They run just about the whole show commercial free, and then run a 10-15 minute block of informer-style adverts. You can't really tell from the image, but this commercial is for premium WHALE BACON. Yep, get your premium whale meat delivered right to your door for a great price. Call now. So... who wants to see a review of a whale bacon omelet? OM NOM NOM

Finally, you can hear some more ranting on the Ninja Consultant Podcast.

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Galapagos Effect in My Manga? It’s more likely than you think.

How the Margaret Barbaree situation can show us potential problems for the future.

A three part series on why anime and manga stand to become less relevant to Americas, and why there’s nothing you can do about it.


Part I;

While the recent events in Florida conger up fond memories of the “good old days” when manga and anime were the spearhead of true counterculture, it is a reminder of an endemic habitual problem of cultural separation with manga (and the anime that is produced from it) across international borders.

In these “good old days” fan communities could hold a special solidarity together, one that could only come from the collective misunderstanding, cultural mistrust, and feelings of ignorant repugnancy from mainstream Middle America which was directed at those subversive perverted unchristian Japanese comics and cartoons. This kind of story is indelibly marked in any otaku who is old enough to have actually bought a VHS tape; Morally overzealous sheltering parent is appalled that a book in the library might contain a reference to something other than good ol’ 1950’s family values (sex, supernatural powers, profanity, etc) and flips her lid because the mere fact that it is a COMIC makes it deliberately aimed at 11 year olds and couldn’t possibly be geared towards another audience.

According to the story the complainant mother said her son “lost his mind” when he read the book, and “Now he’s in a home for extensive therapy.” I would have to say, that “losing your mind” isn’t exactly easy and the only singular events that can trigger such things usually involve traumatic brain injury or smoking lots of crack. The fact that he’s been put in an institutional environment (basically jail with therapists) to "repair the damage" and isolate him from the rest of the evil world leads one to believe that there is a very P.Z. Meyers explanation that can be assumed: Bible thumper mom + young sheltered son saw cartoon boobies = freak out of a Margaret Perrin GOD-WARRIOR magnitude. It reminds me of a time when at Anime Crash we got a letter from some Christian ministry in Texas admonishing us for selling the “occultist poison of Japanese animation” to young Christians. They really hated Sailor Moon for some reason.

Other facts that should tell people that the source of the problem in this case lies not with manga, but with this Margaret Barbaree person, is the fact that her unsupervised son surreptitiously removed this book from the general stacks of the library and then took it home. HE STOLE THE BOOK, he didn’t check it out. Now this woman has refused to return this stolen property and has taken to using deceptive political techniques to get people to sign petitions to “ban pornography in the library” which she then re-brands “ban all anime in the library” (yes she did call it anime). Granted the manga in question Gantz, is probably not what I would recommend for an 11 year old, but this lady has as much credibility in her anti-manga cause as if she wanted to ban Playboy because her son stole one from a news stand.

Part II;

Why the hell does this matter? Well it’s certainly not a harbinger of some sort of neocon movement where the tea-bagger birthers are going to storm the likes of Jim Hanley’s and the CBLDF and start burning things. The problem here is more abstract.

Japan is “turning Japanese,” to use the phrase. There have been political speeches, economic seminars, and countless articles written about the Galapagos Effect shaping Japan’s future. This has been recently highlighted by the article about Japan’s “Digital Homeless” concept (you can see my apartment in that photo there), where high-tech gadgetry mask a very low-tech culture and life-style. Where technological innovation and service innovation live in two separate universes are the ATM machines which can do everything from count your change to write all your transactions in your bank book for you, but that completely close when banking hours are over. Corporate offices where everyone works like crazy but then everyone takes lunch at the exact same time, bringing tasks in progress to a stand-still, and employees who are given extra medical insurance and told by their companies to get checked up to combat potential alcohol abuse, but the next day receive a memo telling them that not attending this week’s nomikai (drinking party) with the boss would be bad for their career. In Japan, there is no negative stigma to being 31 years old and living in your Mom’s basement, because if your family is rich enough to have a basement in the first place, you’re in great shape.

The Galapagos Effect is most prevalently felt in terms of the technology and development of products in Japan. Phones that do things no one but Tokyo kogals need, cars that get an extra 0.2 km per gallon but all look the same, and TV subscription services that think it’s much more important to have that extra bit-rate than to develop original programming and provide a website where subscribers can communicate with each other about why they like the shows that they like. In Japan, that’s progress, but to the rest of the world, that’s meaningless. Japan has given us extraordinary innovations like instant ramen and the air-bag, but the people who develop these things are the exception, not the rule.

There’s also the generation gap, which is incontestably the most pronounced in all of recorded history. The “graying of Japan” will effect three things more than anything else:
1) Public spending: Get ready to see a lot more money go to retrofitting infrastructure with elevators, escalators, and resting spaces, along with policy put in place regarding any new construction.
2) Japanese pharmaceuticals: That’s the new power industry of Japan. People with macular degeneration don’t give two craps about 1080p versus 1080i. The DO care about the ability to properly give-a-crap, in the quite literal sense. Get ready to see some deregulation in the laws which govern the sale of pharmaceutical products and advertising (which here in Japan are very very tight… so tight that it is ILLEGAL for a non-pharmacy store to sell… wait for it… aspirin). FYI another company that is going to get a bump from this are the beverage companies like Asahi, Suntory, and Kirin (have Suntory and Kirin merged yet?), because the “drinkable health supplement” market is not as tight as pharma and these companies know it.
3) Advertising: Pay attention, because that's to do with Part III.

To answer the earlier question however, the basic crux of the argument is that Japan is changing as all cultures do, but unlike other cultures, there seem to be no inroads for future influence to come from outside, and the previous few sources of outside influence are long past the possibility of resuscitation. English speaking ability among students is down, the rate of students studying abroad is down, no real immigration is happening, Japan is a political joke (going through prime ministers like sticks of pockey at an anime convention), it had to bend the rules to maintain status in the G-20, and there’s a general malaise that no matter what anyone does, the rest of the world all has it’s eyes on China. It’s like the older sibling who gets demotivated when the younger one shows up and gets all the “awww how cute” attention.

The economy and culture is changing into its own unique and very disconnected introverted species.

Part III:

OK, so why the hell does THAT matter? Well that matters because if you are outside Japan, you DON’T matter. Japanese advertisers have Japanese products to sell and Japanese TV ads to buy. Ads on TV pay the bills at the end of the day for anime. These ads are now catering to this new Galapagos Effected audience, who don’t necessarily have totally different tastes (yet) than the rest of the world, but definitely a different thought process and hierarchy of priorities. UniQlo the clothing retailer and designer is one of the biggest firms in Japan and just won the Porter Prize for innovation and profitability. But you won’t see them advertise on anime (much). That company has enough money to make their own anime series if they felt like it, but they don’t. That means anime titles are going to get developed which specifically can demonstrate that they can get viewers that advertisers are going after, and those viewers are responsive to certain advertising while other types are not effective. This dynamic has become dissimilar enough from other cultural groups outside Japan, that the actual content of the anime is becoming less appealing.

For Manga, it’s still sales that pays the bills, but that doesn’t mean they will stay relevant. How manga is consumed by people in Japan is well known (daily train rides, down time, and the ever present manga-kissa). These people are all going to have lifestyle trends that move towards the more detached, and just like the Galapagos Effect is internalizing sensibilities towards technology, ways of doing business, and politics, it is internalizing tastes in entertainment media including manga. Since many anime titles are developed from manga, this trend has quite the ripple effect.

Stories and ideas that make for good reading in Japan, will continue to diverge from the kinds of subjects that international audiences can resonate with. If you’re an American otaku, chances are the kinds of titles you like, will continue to be gradually less relevant. At the moment, there’s nothing you can do about it, and the reason is simple. You. Don’t. Matter.

I’ve said this before, but every time I see a thread like this it just makes me want to scream about how ridiculously introverted it is and then send angry e-mails to people at AWO about the same thing. You may consume and really love anime. You may even understand the tip of the iceberg of Japanese culture because of anime, but you are not helping anime. As a matter of fact, you’re actually doing the opposite, and it’s insulting. By watching fansubs or reading scanlations, you are taking away any chance these works of art ever had at finding an audience in America that can support the people who work to get these made. Once that fansub is out there, the property’s freshness seal is broken for all time. No going back.

America had its chance. Japanese companies licensed properties that American companies said in good faith that the titles would resonate with American audiences and they could expect $x amount of TV ad revenue, $x amount of home media sales revenue, and $x amount of value to be added to other licenses like merchandise. Each title is different and each title got valuated accordingly. To avoid self-contradiction I will maintain that often the home media rights were inflated in the heads of the American licensees and they were seemingly willing to pay exorbitant amounts for titles that needed lots of expensive localization and overhead which was all very unrealistic to be made back in the then current state of the market. On the whole however, these numbers were actually not that big, but they did depend on a high percentage of very involved fans accessing these products (or “productions” if that makes you feel better) through the channels that licensed them in order to make revenue that would then be shared with the licensor. Japanese companies would take the proformas given to them by the American licensees and add them to their accounts receivable, which is s short term asset, and a factor in many important ratios which indicate a company’s solvency, credit rating, and things that a company needs in general.

What happened was that bootleggers (or fansubbers, it’s the same thing) got copies of these products, they localized them, and then they distributed them before anyone could even come up with a reasonable number of how much they were worth. This made the value of any license, $0. Companies didn’t initially notice this, and so they licensed properties that had long since started their product life cycle in the American market, and thought they could provide royalties. Fansubbers, and people who watch fansubs who think they’re not hurting the industry, you are the reason that the Japanese publishers and production companies don’t care in the least if you like what they produce or not. They owe nothing to you, and you are the reason that an entire generation of Japanese media professionals believe they lost the American market and the potential sales that could have come from that… sales that would have earned enough money so that they didn’t have to fire their friends.

So if Japanese companies couldn’t be profitable in their licensing to the American market, and if every time they did licensing something they would have to write off losses, then they are going to do the next best thing. Ignore America. Ignore you in their business, ignore your input, and ignore what stories or genres you would like to see. They have no reason to care, and so now the Galapagos Effect has worked its way into anime even stronger.

The American market has lost any chance to have significant input in the kind of anime productions that get made outside of directly investing. Get used to being on the outside looking in. And if you want to see more anime and manga covering the topics you like, and in the style you like… go make your own if you have the time and money. Or manga will eventually be as alien to Americans as mayonnaise on pizza. Still different, still uniquely Japanese, but quite unappealing. Difference in and of itself does not exclusively create appeal.

Welcome to Japan. These aren't the droids you're looking for.

SHORT VERSION OF ALL THAT:

There's always been something different about anime and manga from American sensibilities and sometimes the mainstream still pitches a hissy: That's good.

Japan is becoming more introverted and the kinds of things that appeal to the Japanese market are not that relatable to the American market no matter what. Creating fewer titles that anyone in America will like/follow: That's Bad.

The American market contributed just about nothing in terms of revenue to anime companies, so despite how many anime fans there are outside Japan, it will not effect mow many of those unrelatable manga and anime titles get produced. That's really bad.

The only way to fix that is to make the American market a source of revenue so that it can have any clout in the evolution of manga and anime: That's Impossible.

This problem goes away if it can get a foothold in China, after-all, 1% of the Chinese market is all you would ever need to stick around and stay healthy (that would be 136 million individual sales by the way).  Will companies ever think that the Chinese market will be anything other than the Wild West any time soon?  ...no probably not.   Will that get in the way of making lots of money?  ...no probably not.  So there's hope here.

To Commenters:

FYI; This blog for some reason gets lots of Japanese (and now Chinese) Spam ever since this. So the comments were moderated, BUT lots of messages still end up in the que. If your comment and it doesn't show up, it's because I didn't notice it in there during a purge.

Anger Management

Food With Thoughts.

How does one manage anger in a country so polite it makes Canada look like a nation of drunk Serbian nationalists? Well they use an international fast food chain to bring you “The Angry Whopper” from Bah-gah-kingu. That’s right BK has looked up “spicy” in the dictionary and has apparently found the word “angry” next to it.

So without further anything, here is the Angry Otaku’s look into an edible source of anger. Or is it that the burger is angry and not causing anger…? Oh right, who cares.



So there is the campaign going on. Burger King locations in Japan are apparently comfortable serving food that is emotional unstable! According to this official document on display down in the depths Shinjuku’s Keio Mall (between the JR and Toei entrances) there are some 3 different levels of angriness that you can request. As you can see, the direct translation of the levels on this sign are “meh” “watch-yo self” and “ZOMGWFT you be crayzay!"), no really that’s totally what it says, now go watch a fan-sub because you know all the Japanese you’ll ever need.

Back to the story here, being the adventurous type and loving spicy food in general, I asked for the strongest level.

As this BK didn’t have a dining area, I had no choice but to get it to go. In Japanese, “to go” is said “ore no oshiri o mitte” You should totally go say that to every Japanese person who works at a fast food place… actually just start saying it all the time that way you’ll never forget.

With a level of Japanese efficiency that makes you curse the day you have to return to the U.S., and deal with the products of a broken education system, the smartly uniformed staff had my order ready in under 3 minutes. Had I not been the only customer, they still would have had it ready that fast because I’m important dammit! Now, for an angry piece of BK broiled kick-ass, it was surprising to receive it in an unassuming BK brown paper bag, designed for the snively likes of chicken nuggets or gender-confused teriyaki burgers or any other emotion+menu item. This is an ANGRY WHOPPER and it could tear that helpless paper asunder with it’s anger-ray sesame seed eyes and tomatoes of fury! However I was assured that no chains or Kevlar were necessary as the Angry Whopper is kept in perfect hibernation until the inner wrapper is removed. Ah-so.



So let’s see what’s under there.


It did look pristine for fast food at first glance, with just one sauced up jalapeño falling out, indicating a massive amount stuffed inside. So far so good, and the sauce had that distinct smell of being spiced up deliberately with B-grade pickled chilies (hey it’s BK, not casa de awesome), all accompanied with plenty of onion. To confirm this, there needed to be some checking under the hood.

Immediately the “double tomato” or in Japanese the “futatsu no oppai” (remember to ask for this loudly if you like tomatoes, or just ad “ja-nai” if you don’t) was something that struck tones of some high quality burger-ness to follow, but alas here is where our problems start. They were so thick and slippery that they immediately started causing a loss of structural cohesion between themselves and the lettuice/onions layer. They had to go if this thing was going to still resemble a Whopper, Angry or Otherwise. Normally this isn’t an issue on the regular Whopper, but the extra peppers down there were adding to the slippery plant matter pile. There was also a mayo-like sauce on it which caused concern that it would dampen the awesome hot-ness.


After getting through about half I realized that someone here was angry, but it was most definitely me not the Angry Whopper. The spice level would be what many of my friends call “ooowwww that’s WAY too hot!” which is what I call, “getting there.” But with a little augmentation from some smuggled in Mexican awesome juice, we were back on the true angry trail.



I want to get another one of these. Although angry, it far surpasses anything McDonald's has been able to come up with, with the “Big Texas Burger” being the only thing that comes close. Wendy’s sadly is no more, and MossBurger isn’t what it used to be and has nothing new that isn't topped with a fried egg, while the Freshness Burger chain thinks it’s ok to use frozen ready to cook patties that look like they came from Topps and charge 3 times as much as everyone else. No dear readers, if you are in Japan and find yourself hungry, then the next step should be to find yourself “angry” (unless you’re a vegetarian in which case …this might not be the country for you ...ya pansy).

May 20th, 2010

You know what that means...


EVERYBODY DRAW MUTHERFUCKING MUHHAMAD (Peace Be Upon Him) DAY!!!!!!!

Are you mad? Well I can't see why. Maybe you can explain why. ...just try not to blow something up... or riot... or set someone's house on fire... or stab someone... or just make threats. Don't agitate, educate.

Now you may say that I am agitating, not educating, but I would say I am teaching a valuable lesson about American rights, human communication & learning, and the internet:
A) American Rights include the law's protection for saying things that in other places of the world would get you killed. Europe thinks they have this but they don't ever since they criminalized what they too broadly define as hate speech. Hate speech falls into two different categories... Speech that hates you, and Speech you hate. However you may not like it, BOTH kinds are protected by law in the United States. From advocating the legalization the the most ghastly of narcotic, to the reprehensible act of defending Adolf Hitler, everything between and beyond, is legally protected. It can only be killed in one place, the arena of public opinion.

B) It has long been established that reasons without explanations are not reasons but orders. Much of the time these reasons turned orders are hurled at people who see no authority in the party from which they originate. The originating party is then further frustrated by the non-compliance/non-understanding of what they believe to be logically sound reasoning. What is happening is that several steps are being skipped. One party is expecting another to fully understand the tacit knowledge they all take for granted as to why they say what they say, and the other responds with equally tacit knowledge as to why they are defensive. The missing steps are that both ideas need to pass from tacit, to explicit, and then back to tacit, before the other side can understand... think about it, have you ever truly learned anything any other way?

C) Seriously, welcome to the internet. This is where the most glorious and hideous conceptions and recitations the unfettered masses have to offer. You WILL be offended. You WILL be insulted. You WILL feel helpless against it. Take a lesson in humility that somewhere, someone is doing something that is the most insulting thing possible to you... with words, pictures, or abstract actions. And ask yourself, if your electricity went out an hour ago... would you feel the same way? The internet does not come to you. You go to it. Time is better spent on other things.

Dedicated to the cowards of Comedy Central, and the coward Molly Norris.

Procedural Update

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

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.

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.

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.

(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.



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