http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26639577/
Apparently.... Gurren Lagann is a sexually explicit show.
LOL!“When you see a kid sitting in Borders reading a manga, he’s not just reading a comic book,” Macias said. “There is something really powerful going on there.”
Damn, I was about to get copyrights on that kind of sentence.Originally Posted by 32-year-old otaku expert Lawrence Eng.
still, I can't find any serious flaw in the article, it's a pretty much a bullseye.
sig made by Itachi-y2k5, thanks, dude!
Currently Watching: probably a show directed at 9 years old girls, lets be honest.
You know the important distinction between Batman and me? Batman is fictional. In real life, there isn't always an alternative.
Except for this little blurb:
HAHAHAHAHAHAABut sexually-suggestive and explicit anime like "Gurren Lagann" and "Legend of the Overfiend," is finding an eager audience of adult Americans who are drawn to the post-modern, almost post-human mash-up of playful, blurry morality found in the genre.
I went into that article thinking it would be as misinformed as all the others, but aside from the usual scaremongering that all American media contains, it's pretty well informed. Hell, it even tries to push the idea that Lolicons aren't pedophiles.
I've got nothing to criticize it with.
<@Terra> he told me this, "man actually meeting terra is so fucking big", and he started crying. Then he bought me hot dogs
Not a bad article, but his central point is flawed. Basically he's saying that otaku lifestyle is taking over and that it's ok. It's not really. It's like in the early 2000s when mainstream media was saying it's cool to be homosexual and everyone was coming out of the closet because it was the hip thing to be, even if they weren't gay.
Being otaku is nothing to celebrate, at least not if you go by the American definition of otaku, which basically means you're not socially adept and somewhat pathetic. The Japanese definition of otaku means you're a big (almost obsessive) fan of anything, not just tech or geek culture, so it's a little more forgiving. But ask any of these otaku (who aren't delusional from years of isolation) and they'd admit the desire to actually have friends and a real girlfriend.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
I dunno. There's enough girl otaku out there to give the dude otakus some hope. The only delusion a lot of otaku suffer nowadays is that having a girl in your group of friends actually makes you attractive.
<@Terra> he told me this, "man actually meeting terra is so fucking big", and he started crying. Then he bought me hot dogs
We have to be careful to differentiate between the Japanese and American definition of otakus. In Japan, otaku-ness is slowly gaining acceptance, but only where it's an obsession (some would call it dedication) to something, particularly if its not tech/anime culture. Just as in the US, wide acceptance of super-dorky geeks will probably never happen in Japan.
If you love something enough, like cooking or guitar playing, you can be considered an otaku in Japan. And since there will be girls who love the same things, you can break free of the "loner nerd" stigma that is associated with tech/anime culture.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
If there are otaku in my area, then I'm not aware of them. From the way I see it, Australia's still part of the backward-American fandom. ie, otaku=college males.
Perhaps I just need to look a bit harder though. There's bound to be an anime convention somewhere that I've never heard of in my life.
(edit: wiki tells me there's one near my in September.....)
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I know a few international students from Australia here who are otaku, one of them is on the executive for our uni's Anime/Geek Culture club (actually known as the Fantasy, Literature, Anime, Sci-Fi and Horror (FLASH) Club, of which I'm the president)
Actually thats pretty much the exact path I take people down to get them interested in Anime... and my aforementioned club is adopting that method this semester to get a few handfuls of new students into it.
It surely was a surprisingly positive article, though valid points was made in this thread.
In addition to the things already quoted here I noticed this one as well. While it's true that in most Hollywood productions good and bad are extremely underlined, even in movies like the Dark Knight, it's not like the division would be nonexistent in anime/manga. Rather I think it's just a lot more realistic often, or stylized and thought-provoking like in Death Note or Code Geass. It's not like it would be completely absent. In fact I think most people would have troubles watching stories with no morality whatsoever.“The ideas of good/bad, right/wrong, that duality is not present.”
Does 888 mean something in French like it does in Chinese?
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Nope, but I like it too.
Regarding ero-anime and mainstream, I need figures to understand what mainstream means in that particular case.
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
I'd say mainstream means it's at least not shunned when mentioned. Not necessarily popular, but socially acceptable. For example, a group of non-otaku friends can go to an Anime Convention like going to a festival, without feeling that they'll be called geeks and all when the tell about it. Or just the very fact that they'd go without feeling they're walking into some cult activity.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
If that's the case then I don't think this article has reached where I live. When I told my coworkers I was going to an anime convention they all assumed I was going to watch pokemon hentai and drink Mountain Dew in a Holiday Inn ballroom with a few hundred other people for a whole Saturday.
However on the flip side I notice people at the convention who didn't really look like they came by choice but were instead with children or friends. Yet many of these people seemed to be having an okay or even good time.
I think the only real point one can glean from this article is that the up and coming generation doesn't harbor the stigmatizing distaste for anime that the previous generation had. However, I still wouldn't go so far as to call anime mainstream yet since the members of the previous generation are still alive and well and they don't seem to have changed their opinions for the most part.
I think we've strayed from the author's central argument that "sexy" anime is now mainstream and acceptable and that more and more people are interested in it. As with any activity, if enough sickos participate, it somehow means it's socially acceptable, or should be. He's saying that lewd and sexually suggestive anime are ok to watch now without fear of being called a sexual deviant or pervert.
He's wrong of course, and trying to justify his own collection of hentai. He mentions how otaku prefer to idolize figurines with short skirts because they don't "talk back" like real women might. This article is pretty twisted.
“For God will not permit that we shall know what is to come... those who by some sorcery or by some dream might come to pierce the veil that lies so darkly over all that is before them may serve by just that vision to cause that God should wrench the world from its heading and set it upon another course altogether and then where stands the sorcerer? Where the dreamer and his dream?”
Welp....this thread settles it.
Gotwoot is now officially an anime forum
10/4/04 - 8/20/07
Mainstream is anything non-hentai.
not for long
Cowboy bebop, cowboy bebop, cowboy bebop...
when someone wants something to jump into anime with, you give him Cowboy bebop.
it was true five years ago, it was true two years ago, it's true now, and it'll be forever the only true choice.
seriously, you should know better.
if someone grabs a tit, then it's not appropriate. no one finds it funny.
in the same notice, who is all the 'fanservice' targeted at? I have yet to encounter an anime fan saying "this series is so awesome! there's hinted booby shots all around! there's this cute girl character, but she has huge breasts! and they hang around hot springs all day!".
do they really exist?
sig made by Itachi-y2k5, thanks, dude!
Currently Watching: probably a show directed at 9 years old girls, lets be honest.
You know the important distinction between Batman and me? Batman is fictional. In real life, there isn't always an alternative.
Am I the only one who thinks Cowboy Bebop is overrated? I could never get into it.
"They call it 'The American Dream' because you have to be asleep to believe it" - George Carlin
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