Kickin' it old school with beer and pumpkins!
2 weeks ago
Anime is Serious Business Because Guilt is Serious Business « We Remember Love
Anime is Serious Business Because Guilt is Serious Business « We Remember Love: "Some considerations:
90% of anime and manga is crud (Sturgeon’s Revelation); or, 80% of the good stuff one gets out anime and manga comes from 20% of the examples (Pareto’s Principle, ‘The Law of the Vital Few’); take your pick. Either way, many shows people like will fall under the ‘not excellent’ spectrum of quality.
Most people won’t enjoy being identified with ‘bad’ taste. So with regards to liking anime/manga with questionable quality, a choice confronts the viewer:
1. I accept that this work as flawed/bad/terrible and that my taste is flawed/bad/terrible; or,
2. I reject the idea that the work is flawed/bad/terrible. Other people are wrong.
While I think that this is a false dichotomy… and an easily enough deconstructed binary, I posit that more often than not (even without statistics to back up my claim) this is the choice that presents itself first. This is the choice architecture that determines people’s behavior more than calm reflection and expression.
When people actually choose #1, or are ‘forced to’ due to overall consensus that a show is terrible (e.g. Akikan) they often play a card that allows them to pretend that"
90% of anime and manga is crud (Sturgeon’s Revelation); or, 80% of the good stuff one gets out anime and manga comes from 20% of the examples (Pareto’s Principle, ‘The Law of the Vital Few’); take your pick. Either way, many shows people like will fall under the ‘not excellent’ spectrum of quality.
Most people won’t enjoy being identified with ‘bad’ taste. So with regards to liking anime/manga with questionable quality, a choice confronts the viewer:
1. I accept that this work as flawed/bad/terrible and that my taste is flawed/bad/terrible; or,
2. I reject the idea that the work is flawed/bad/terrible. Other people are wrong.
While I think that this is a false dichotomy… and an easily enough deconstructed binary, I posit that more often than not (even without statistics to back up my claim) this is the choice that presents itself first. This is the choice architecture that determines people’s behavior more than calm reflection and expression.
When people actually choose #1, or are ‘forced to’ due to overall consensus that a show is terrible (e.g. Akikan) they often play a card that allows them to pretend that"
Elvira on Stan Lee on American Comics
"The comic-book industry, in general, is kind of in trouble. It’s going the way the music industry is. I had a meeting with Stan Lee about a year ago to talk about doing another comic book—he’s always been a big fan of Elvira—and he said—and this is coming from Mr. Comic Book himself—“Get out of comic books! Forget it! It’s over! It’s done! All people want to do is get on the Internet!” I’m happy that I did all those comic books; I have them all, and it was a really cool thing to do. I still, of course, go to Comic-Con every year. But even Comic-Con is less about comic books now and more about Hollywood. It’s a freaking nightmare." -- Source
In Wacky, Wonderful Osaka...
A businessman built a nearly 1/1 scale replica of an English countryside chapel.
Vegas, eat yer heart out!
Astro Toy!
The figures still haven't hit the Target and/or Wal*Mart locations but you fast food fans can expect to find a little love in your Happy Meal.
Tales of Forgotten Dorks
WOE BE UNTO US! For we have shamefully forgotten the comrades who have fought and died to bring us this oh-so-mighty FANDUMB!
Someone pass the tissues . . .
One giant leap for chogokin(d)....
I was turned on to this by a fellow TBDXer; apparently, Bandai is putting out a 1/144 Apollo 11 set...even at 1/144, this thing is MASSIVE...Eagle, Saturn rocket, the works (I assume for the 40th anniversary of the moon landing). The set looks amazing, but also carries an amazing price tag of Y52,500 (about 580 of our pathetic American dollars). Still, I will give Bandai credit for some creative releases.
'Do You Remember Love?' Composer Kazuhiko Katoh Found Hanged (Updated) - Anime News Network
'Do You Remember Love?' Composer Kazuhiko Katoh Found Hanged (Updated) - Anime News Network: "Kazuhiko Katoh, the co-founder of two musical bands and the composer of the main theme songs for The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? and Windaria, was found hanged in his hotel room in Nagano Prefecture on Saturday. He was 62. The local authorities believe he had committed suicide, due to two copies of a last will that he reportedly had left in his room."
Astro Boy -- Film Review
Astro Boy -- Film Review: "Designed to cater to older kids and their nostalgic parents, the heavily marketed Summit Entertainment release could be well-positioned to attract a sizable demographic."
Hollywood Reporter reviews Astro Boy, seems to think it's ok.
Hollywood Reporter reviews Astro Boy, seems to think it's ok.
'Astro Boy': The Latest in Line of Left-Leaning Animated Films? - Inside Movies
'Astro Boy': The Latest in Line of Left-Leaning Animated Films? - Inside Movies: "Crude posters of Lenin and Trotsky adorn the threadbare walls of an office in a desolate part of town, and a group of outcast revolutionaries hatch a scheme to overthrow the ruling powers and bring equality and a classless society to mankind. The beginning of an Eisenstein film? Bunuel? Renoir?"
UPDATE: Here's the link to the Astro Boy World Premiere in Tokyo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maDpNEoE2DU
UPDATE: Here's the link to the Astro Boy World Premiere in Tokyo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maDpNEoE2DU
Astro Boy Sequel -- wtf?
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/portals/news/?a=10843
Talk about jumping the gun!
My best guess is that the first one won't hit the hoped-for numbers, thus making a potential franchise far from a given. I mean, even factoring-in the world market we're still talking about residuals for the not-cheap Hollywood voice cast.
An' the other thing? Toys haven't hit yet and the flick hits in two weeks -- what's up with that? Resident Target Troll Fran will be on that literally as it rolls off the trucks, and I expect a full, squealing fanboy review as soon as he gets internet back (can you believe I helped his ass move yet AGAIN?)
P.S. Anyone got the 411 on Imagi's Gatchaman flick?!?!?
Voltron news - for reference
http://io9.com/tag/voltron/
New agency dealing the rights, a new theatrical rendition, all that jazz.
This probably means yet another re-issue of the old DX toy and still another "Super Real Ultra High Detailed Die-Cast with Plastic". Sure can get a lot of mileage out of this one, eh?
Fever Macross!
These commercials are for Fever Macross Pachinko, but the CG is so damn good....if Tobey can do this with the LA Robotech, I'm very optimistic (maybe we can get crusty ol' DVC to go see it)!
http://henkei.jp/cm/index.html
Watch out for sexless Veggie men running rampant in Tokyo!
"The Herbivore's Dilemma
Japan panics about the rise of "grass-eating men," who shun sex, don't spend money, and like taking walks.
By Alexandra HarneyPosted Monday, June 15, 2009, at 2:04 PM ET
Ryoma Igarashi likes going for long drives through the mountains, taking photographs of Buddhist temples and exploring old neighborhoods. He's just taken up gardening, growing radishes in a planter in his apartment. Until recently, Igarashi, a 27-year-old Japanese television presenter, would have been considered effeminate, even gay. Japanese men have long been expected to live like characters on Mad Men, chasing secretaries, drinking with the boys, and splurging on watches, golf, and new cars.
Today, Igarashi has a new identity (and plenty of company among young Japanese men) as one of the soushoku danshi—literally translated, "grass-eating boys." Named for their lack of interest in sex and their preference for quieter, less competitive lives, Japan's "herbivores" are provoking a national debate about how the country's economic stagnation since the early 1990s has altered men's behavior.
Newspapers, magazines, and television shows are newly fixated on the herbivores. "Have men gotten weaker?" was one theme of a recent TV talk show. "Herbivores Aren't So Bad" is the title of a regular column on the Japanese Web site NB Online.
In this age of bromance and metrosexuals, why all the fuss? The short answer is that grass-eating men are alarming because they are the nexus between two of the biggest challenges facing Japanese society: the declining birth rate and anemic consumption. Herbivores represent an unspoken rebellion against many of the masculine, materialist values associated with Japan's 1980s bubble economy. Media Shakers, a consulting company that is a subsidiary of Dentsu, the country's largest advertising agency, estimates that 60 percent of men in their early 20s and at least 42 percent of men aged 23 to 34 consider themselves grass-eating men. Partner Agent, a Japanese dating agency, found in a survey that 61 percent of unmarried men in their 30s identified themselves as herbivores. Of the 1,000 single men in their 20s and 30s polled by Lifenet, a Japanese life-insurance company, 75 percent described themselves as grass-eating men.
Japanese companies are worried that herbivorous boys aren't the status-conscious consumers their parents once were. They love to putter around the house. According to Media Shakers' research, they are more likely to want to spend time by themselves or with close friends, more likely to shop for things to decorate their homes, and more likely to buy little luxuries than big-ticket items. They prefer vacationing in Japan to venturing abroad. They're often close to their mothers and have female friends, but they're in no rush to get married themselves, according to Maki Fukasawa, the Japanese editor and columnist who coined the term in NB Online in 2006.
Grass-eating boys' commitment phobia is not the only thing that's worrying Japanese women. Unlike earlier generations of Japanese men, they prefer not to make the first move, they like to split the bill, and they're not particularly motivated by sex. "I spent the night at one guy's house, and nothing happened—we just went to sleep!" moaned one incredulous woman on a TV program devoted to herbivores. "It's like something's missing with them," said Yoko Yatsu, a 34-year-old housewife, in an interview. "If they were more normal, they'd be more interested in women. They'd at least want to talk to women."
Shigeru Sakai of Media Shakers suggests that grass-eating men don't pursue women because they are bad at expressing themselves. He attributes their poor communication skills to the fact that many grew up without siblings in households where both parents worked. "Because they had TVs, stereos and game consoles in their bedrooms, it became more common for them to shut themselves in their rooms when they got home and communicate less with their families, which left them with poor communication skills," he wrote in an e-mail. (Japan has rarely needed its men to have sex as much as it does now. Low birth rates, combined with a lack of immigration, have caused the country's population to shrink every year since 2005.)
It may be that Japan's efforts to make the workplace more egalitarian planted the seeds for the grass-eating boys, says Fukasawa. In the wake of Japan's 1985 Equal Employment Opportunity Law, women assumed greater responsibility at work, and the balance of power between the sexes began to shift. Though there are still significant barriers to career advancement for women, a new breed of female executive who could party almost as hard as her male colleagues emerged. Office lechery, which had been socially acceptable, became stigmatized as seku hara, or sexual harassment.
But it was the bursting of Japan's bubble in the early 1990s, coupled with this shift in the social landscape, that made the old model of Japanese manhood unsustainable. Before the bubble collapsed, Japanese companies offered jobs for life. Salarymen who knew exactly where their next paycheck was coming from were more confident buying a Tiffany necklace or an expensive French dinner for their girlfriend. Now, nearly 40 percent of Japanese work in nonstaff positions with much less job security.
"When the economy was good, Japanese men had only one lifestyle choice: They joined a company after they graduated from college, got married, bought a car, and regularly replaced it with a new one," says Fukasawa. "Men today simply can't live that stereotypical 'happy' life."
Yoto Hosho, a 22-year-old college dropout who considers himself and most of his friends herbivores, believes the term describes a diverse group of men who have no desire to live up to traditional social expectations in their relationships with women, their jobs, or anything else. "We don't care at all what people think about how we live," he says.
Many of Hosho's friends spend so much time playing computer games that they prefer the company of cyber women to the real thing. And the Internet, he says, has helped make alternative lifestyles more acceptable. Hosho believes that the lines between men and women in his generation have blurred. He points to the popularity of "boys love," a genre of manga and novels written for women about romantic relationships between men that has spawned its own line of videos, computer games, magazines, and cafes where women dress as men.
Fukasawa contends that while some grass-eating men may be gay, many are not. Nor are they metrosexuals. Rather, their behavior reflects a rejection of both the traditional Japanese definition of masculinity and what she calls the West's "commercialization" of relationships, under which men needed to be macho and purchase products to win a woman's affection. Some Western concepts, like going to dinner parties as a couple, never fit easily into Japanese culture, she says. Others never even made it into the language—the term "ladies first," for instance, is usually said in English in Japan. During Japan's bubble economy, "Japanese people had to live according to both Western standards and Japanese standards," says Fukasawa. "That trend has run its course."
Japanese women are not taking the herbivores' indifference lightly. In response to the herbivorous boys' tepidity, "carnivorous girls" are taking matters into their own hands, pursuing men more aggressively. Also known as "hunters," these women could be seen as Japan's version of America's cougars.
While many Japanese women might disagree, Fukasawa sees grass-eating boys as a positive development for Japanese society. She notes that before World War II, herbivores were more common: Novelists such as Osamu Dazai and Soseki Natsume would have been considered grass-eating boys. But in the postwar economic boom, men became increasingly macho, increasingly hungry for products to mark their personal economic progress. Young Japanese men today are choosing to have less to prove.
Today, Igarashi has a new identity (and plenty of company among young Japanese men) as one of the soushoku danshi—literally translated, "grass-eating boys." Named for their lack of interest in sex and their preference for quieter, less competitive lives, Japan's "herbivores" are provoking a national debate about how the country's economic stagnation since the early 1990s has altered men's behavior.
Newspapers, magazines, and television shows are newly fixated on the herbivores. "Have men gotten weaker?" was one theme of a recent TV talk show. "Herbivores Aren't So Bad" is the title of a regular column on the Japanese Web site NB Online.
In this age of bromance and metrosexuals, why all the fuss? The short answer is that grass-eating men are alarming because they are the nexus between two of the biggest challenges facing Japanese society: the declining birth rate and anemic consumption. Herbivores represent an unspoken rebellion against many of the masculine, materialist values associated with Japan's 1980s bubble economy. Media Shakers, a consulting company that is a subsidiary of Dentsu, the country's largest advertising agency, estimates that 60 percent of men in their early 20s and at least 42 percent of men aged 23 to 34 consider themselves grass-eating men. Partner Agent, a Japanese dating agency, found in a survey that 61 percent of unmarried men in their 30s identified themselves as herbivores. Of the 1,000 single men in their 20s and 30s polled by Lifenet, a Japanese life-insurance company, 75 percent described themselves as grass-eating men.
Japanese companies are worried that herbivorous boys aren't the status-conscious consumers their parents once were. They love to putter around the house. According to Media Shakers' research, they are more likely to want to spend time by themselves or with close friends, more likely to shop for things to decorate their homes, and more likely to buy little luxuries than big-ticket items. They prefer vacationing in Japan to venturing abroad. They're often close to their mothers and have female friends, but they're in no rush to get married themselves, according to Maki Fukasawa, the Japanese editor and columnist who coined the term in NB Online in 2006.
Grass-eating boys' commitment phobia is not the only thing that's worrying Japanese women. Unlike earlier generations of Japanese men, they prefer not to make the first move, they like to split the bill, and they're not particularly motivated by sex. "I spent the night at one guy's house, and nothing happened—we just went to sleep!" moaned one incredulous woman on a TV program devoted to herbivores. "It's like something's missing with them," said Yoko Yatsu, a 34-year-old housewife, in an interview. "If they were more normal, they'd be more interested in women. They'd at least want to talk to women."
Shigeru Sakai of Media Shakers suggests that grass-eating men don't pursue women because they are bad at expressing themselves. He attributes their poor communication skills to the fact that many grew up without siblings in households where both parents worked. "Because they had TVs, stereos and game consoles in their bedrooms, it became more common for them to shut themselves in their rooms when they got home and communicate less with their families, which left them with poor communication skills," he wrote in an e-mail. (Japan has rarely needed its men to have sex as much as it does now. Low birth rates, combined with a lack of immigration, have caused the country's population to shrink every year since 2005.)
It may be that Japan's efforts to make the workplace more egalitarian planted the seeds for the grass-eating boys, says Fukasawa. In the wake of Japan's 1985 Equal Employment Opportunity Law, women assumed greater responsibility at work, and the balance of power between the sexes began to shift. Though there are still significant barriers to career advancement for women, a new breed of female executive who could party almost as hard as her male colleagues emerged. Office lechery, which had been socially acceptable, became stigmatized as seku hara, or sexual harassment.
But it was the bursting of Japan's bubble in the early 1990s, coupled with this shift in the social landscape, that made the old model of Japanese manhood unsustainable. Before the bubble collapsed, Japanese companies offered jobs for life. Salarymen who knew exactly where their next paycheck was coming from were more confident buying a Tiffany necklace or an expensive French dinner for their girlfriend. Now, nearly 40 percent of Japanese work in nonstaff positions with much less job security.
"When the economy was good, Japanese men had only one lifestyle choice: They joined a company after they graduated from college, got married, bought a car, and regularly replaced it with a new one," says Fukasawa. "Men today simply can't live that stereotypical 'happy' life."
Yoto Hosho, a 22-year-old college dropout who considers himself and most of his friends herbivores, believes the term describes a diverse group of men who have no desire to live up to traditional social expectations in their relationships with women, their jobs, or anything else. "We don't care at all what people think about how we live," he says.
Many of Hosho's friends spend so much time playing computer games that they prefer the company of cyber women to the real thing. And the Internet, he says, has helped make alternative lifestyles more acceptable. Hosho believes that the lines between men and women in his generation have blurred. He points to the popularity of "boys love," a genre of manga and novels written for women about romantic relationships between men that has spawned its own line of videos, computer games, magazines, and cafes where women dress as men.
Fukasawa contends that while some grass-eating men may be gay, many are not. Nor are they metrosexuals. Rather, their behavior reflects a rejection of both the traditional Japanese definition of masculinity and what she calls the West's "commercialization" of relationships, under which men needed to be macho and purchase products to win a woman's affection. Some Western concepts, like going to dinner parties as a couple, never fit easily into Japanese culture, she says. Others never even made it into the language—the term "ladies first," for instance, is usually said in English in Japan. During Japan's bubble economy, "Japanese people had to live according to both Western standards and Japanese standards," says Fukasawa. "That trend has run its course."
Japanese women are not taking the herbivores' indifference lightly. In response to the herbivorous boys' tepidity, "carnivorous girls" are taking matters into their own hands, pursuing men more aggressively. Also known as "hunters," these women could be seen as Japan's version of America's cougars.
While many Japanese women might disagree, Fukasawa sees grass-eating boys as a positive development for Japanese society. She notes that before World War II, herbivores were more common: Novelists such as Osamu Dazai and Soseki Natsume would have been considered grass-eating boys. But in the postwar economic boom, men became increasingly macho, increasingly hungry for products to mark their personal economic progress. Young Japanese men today are choosing to have less to prove.
Alexandra Harney is the author of The China Price and a regular commentator on Japanese television.
Copyright 2009 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
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Copyright 2009 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC
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