アニ・ノート

The Anime Almanac takes on the issue of the Tokyopop. Since I almost do not follow the manga at all, the article contained one eye-opener for me. I knew about the Tokyopop’s big OEL push. I knew that something was fishy with it when things like Van Von Hunter began to be manufactured from scratch with an “exit strategy” of getting a Tokyopop release. But I thought that it was brought about not by Del Rey’s success, but by Tokyopop execs observing how the market for localized works is bigger than that for exotics. Consider the success of Afro Samurai: Samuel Jackson sold more than twice over Aya Hirano. It was self-evident that the key to leapfrog the competition was to create a similar hybrid (even if Afro Samurai did not exist when Tokyopop searched for their breakout).

However, many fans of Japanese manga do not like OEL titles because they lack those exotic novelties that made Tokyopop huge in that “100% Authentic” revolution.

Psychoanalyse it however you like, but let me tell you, I am outraged every time I see fake manga. The feeling of betrayal is just burning.

Now let me just say that just because a manga is created by a Westerner for a Western audience does not mean that it is a bad comic. The aforementioned Fred Gallagher and Bryan Lee O’Malley both produce two phenomenal series. I’m even planning on writing a post about Scott Pilgrim in the near future because it’s so good. Even looking at Tokyopop’s OEL titles, you will find a fantastic gem called Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova. These series are light years beyond most Japanese manga, and they should not be overlooked simply because they’re not Japanese.

See the fallacy? Scott takes the best of OEL and compare it with the average of manga. How about comparing the “most” of OEL with the “most” of manga? Or pit Miss Chmakova against Mr. Azuma?

Apropos Fred Gallagher, it’s hard for me to understand just how he became a celebrity cartoonist. I never liked his strip. Still, he may have a few good ideas:

The company first received some flack when it was revealed that the terms of the contract to their potential Original English Language (OEL) manga artists granted the company fall “moral rights” to the artist’s works. The contract was immediately blasted by Fred Gallagher and Bryan Lee O’Malley, two highly successful OEL creators not on Tokyopop label, which generated an outcry from the community.

The two names mentioned above may not have much weight with me, but Scott Kurtz, who is an authentic American cartoonist, wrote about it twice (notice that he gives credit to Bryan Lee O’Malley for raising the rouble).

BTW, Kurtz tried to valtz with anime a few times. The last one was just embarrassing. Unfortunately, I don’t have a link saved.

UPDATE: Sixten e-mailed with the core question — do we judge by content or creator — only framed against himself:

Would you consider mine and Jason’s project, or any of Hinano’s doujins, as an “outrage” or a “betrayal”?

I’ll tell you what… If you use a fake Japanese pen name, if you produce crap in Inkscape just to milk another OEL crash program, why yes, I will!

Starlight does not pretend to be what it’s not.

J.P. Meyer’s did not register offence on behalf of Hinano, maybe because he knows what the issue is. He pointed me to Penny-Arcade compic of 2004. Look who stands in the Megatokyo line.

He also added the following tidbit:

I think, THINK that part of the deal with OEL manga was that it appealed to people that didn’t even consider manga or comics, period. I am fairly certain that Viz got some OEL manga (which they attached the Shojo Beat label to anyway) into Cosmo Girl, for example.

UPDATE NEXT DAY: We woke Omo. Too much to quote, just read it.

I’m not dead set against 3D as such, I liked Shrek. But there’s just something very wrong about the motion of people in Appleseed Ex Machina. I lasted for 24 minutes.

Maybe I’m in the Uncanny Valley with this. It certainly is pretty, in static pictures.

I heard of it first as Scott twittered it:

#: I’ve got to say, I really respect Greg Ayres for putting up with all the shit that people say about him.
#: I didn’t believe it when he was telling me about it, but reading through Anime Nano now, I can see that he does get blasted pretty badly.

Seemed like nothing interesting, just another industry insider being silly enough to pay attention to trolls at forums. Right?

Now, check what J.P. Meyer posted (it’s long, but worth reading):

We wanted to go to that panel for some kind of a debate or discussion about the perilous situation that the American anime industry is in, and ask questions about things like streaming video or raws. Instead, the thing was basically a big straw man circle jerk. The “arguments” that people were giving for downloading were so specious that I couldn’t believe that people actually used them to try to justify their actions. We’re talking about things like preferring subtitles to dubs or purposely trying to “hurt” ADV because it’s so big and bad. []

I had sticky, nuanced issues that I wanted to discuss but basically got shouted down after asking some of them and gave up. I tried to ask how Tivoing Code Geass and not watching the commercials was different from watching a fansub of Code Geass when some guy in the audience started babbling on about timesharing. After I said “I’m familiar with the legal decision in Sony vs. Universal (I learned about when I did my MASTERS in TV AND FILM and needed to brief my boss about AT MY JOB IN TV LICENSING)”, the guy kind of waddled out of the room. Additionally, I believe that Greg Ayers had said something about how anime lost its advertising 2 months ago or something. This was news to us, and we said amongst ourselves “Whoa, what’s this? I hadn’t heard about this”, to which the dude in front of us was like “THERE’S NO MORE ANIME IN THE ANIME BLOCK IN JAPAN NOW!” Again, this was also news to me so I was like “Whoa, which one? I just saw the ratings last week and the big blocks like Sunday night and Thursday morning were still there. Do you mean like the late-night shows that air at like 2:30am?” to which he just babbled on again about how there’s no more anime.

Here’s the problem: that discussion is fundamentally about how to get anime without paying for it. The shame argument for buying DVDs is centered around saying “You didn’t spend $30 for everything you ever watched, and now Suncoast video died and that’s your fault and now anime will die too because people won’t be able to buy anime at the mall because you killed Suncoast.” Yet now we’re getting told how to buy DVDs for less than $30 even though that’s what you just said was bad! Similarly, we were also just told how the anime industry can’t afford to price DVDs like Hollywood can, but now we’re going to get told how to be able to buy the DVDs for prices like what Hollywood charges for that season of Lost! If everyone did these practices, the industry WILL STILL DIE. []

This is the same event they’re talking about, right?

Obviously J.P. was rather naive. The only way he would be able to discuss anything “sticky” and “nuanced” is if a) he was sitting on the panel, and b) having moderator actually moderating. So, his frustration was preordained. But still, my sympathies.

Once agitated, J.P. goes on a roll for many paragraphs. Too many to quote in fact, so just read it. The only other thing I want to note is this:

The best, most nuanced, and most intelligent approach to piracy that I’ve seen is from the computer game company Stardock.

That sounds familiar to me, because Shamus mentioned it many times. Still, the fact that Stardock is not a powerhouse like EA hints at certain problems. Why haven’t they swallowed their competitors yet?

Speaking of small underdogs doing The Right Thing and being creamed, BOST will not show Strike Witches next season, yet Crunchyroll will (pox upon their house).

UPDATE: J.P. e-mailed with the following:

Also, I totally forgot to mention in my post how fansubs are a hell of a lot more than just the US until a Spanish dude brought up how he watches fansubs and he’s obviously not going to be going around buying R1 DVDs. Like these:

http://www.minaidehazukashii.com/?p=119
http://www.minaidehazukashii.com/?p=199

I loved comments like “I’d rather translate XYZ into English because it’d be pointless to fansub it in my native language since almost nobody here cares about anime.”

Also, I didn’t realize this until DS mentioned it to me in an email just now, but a big part of the “problem” with streaming (the three of us groaned after that part in the video because Japan most certainly IS streaming anime to America, and we watched some of it!) is that it cuts out the American middleman. If everything’s just going to end up on the internet anyway (not in terms of piracy, but I mean in terms of a paradigm shift), the American industry will shrivel up since the American (and most likely international, unless of course they use IP lockouts so that the ads will remain relevant) viewers will just be paying them for the stream or providing eyeballs for their advertisers.

Not sure how right he is. Someone has to do the work, middleman or not. GEICO did not put Progressive out of business in all these years, ditto Dell vs. IBM. I suppose we’ll see in a couple of years.

In Omo’s comments, I read things like:

Like Omo, my manga, anime-related novels (and other books), and anime-related CD purchases come to about 2.5 times my DVD purchases (I don’t buy figures, really, but I do buy character art).

Although I know it to be a conventional wisdom (see Yohurt in Spaceballs), personally I do not feel an urge to buy themed goods most of the time. All I have is two sets of Azumanga manga (ADV and Dengeki), Azumanga artbooks, and Rocket Girls light novel. I suppose I’m out of touch with the soul of an average fan…

By way of an image board link, I received the 2MB image of a roster poster, compiled by Japanese. I suppose most would identify it by calling pantsu “Bodysuit”. It also includes this detail:

I’m not enough of a history buff to recognize mangled names of Japanese aces, and so I mistakenly thought that Yoshika did not have a real life prototype. But I bet most Japanese do not know who Vorozheikin was either.

It’s an entry full of spoilers, but also many interesting screenshots which looks more Ghiblesque than early Dennou Coil. Not what I expected at all. I suppose he didn’t extract the video out of a PS3.

According to today’s post at Heart’s Content, Jason abrubtly resigned from the manga project. The split apparently was precipitated by the Miao-sensei doujin. What a SHOKKA.

Actually, I’m not all that surprised. When Chainmail Bikini ended, Shawn, the artist, made (or confirmed) a few good points which cast doubt over the viability of any such remote collaboration. So even without the doujin the manga battled against the odds.

In fact, I doubt that the doujin was the problem at all. I was quite happy and flattered to see Author-tan, not in the least because of the publicity. Surely Jason ought to see the benefits of letting Sixten to roam freely… as long as manga was being made.

But it looks like the latter part was lacking. Mike Krahulik of Penny Arcade summed up what makes a successful comic artist thus: “Draw like crazy every day and never miss a deadline”. Oh well. Sixten is going to come out of it stronger.

The site is being worked on.

UPDATE: I cannot use fingerprinting together with WP-supercache, which is mandatory on my current server.

Going to Nevada. See you all Tuesday…

It’s posted. And you know what? I’m not going to read it, at least not right away. I’m not firm enough mentally after a 17-hour drive.

UPDATE: Lolikit only discovered Miao Diary now.