Technical Difficulties

Having problems with my internet connection. Will post soon.

The Fansubber Issue

This post got me thinking about another issue in Anime concern, fansubbing.

Now I used to be all “Fansubs are bad because you can get viruses from downloading them”, but really with the right Anti-Virus software this problem can be solved easily. What was a deeper moral concern was the issue of piracy. Now here’s a problem:

1: I like to pay for stuff, CDs, DVDs, videogames, etc, because I like to support artists being one myself.

2: Stuff like Kaiba isn’t out in Australian distribution on DVD, and the only way I can get it is to download a fansub, which is, pretty much, illegal.

OH NOES, THE WOE!

But at the same time, if you pay for DVDs of Anime as well as watch fansubs of Anime that won’t see local distribution in a million years, this is a good compromise. For every fansub you download you buy the DVD of that fansubbed series if it ever comes out. Also, if you can as this new method of distribution develops, download legal Anime fansubs as this new media format hatches.

But aside from the legality of fansubs, which I’ve already addressed here in as much length as I have to, there’s the issue of the quality of fansubs. I’m quite picky when it comes to fansubs and I’ll search for a better fansub version of the same show if one version is crappy. An example of crappy, in my sense of the word, is the fansub of True Tears which has such bad syncing and timing that Noe’s words are coming out of a boy’s mouth, when Noe hasn’t even appeared on screen yet. This is no minor complaint about karaoke subs in the opening and closing sequence, this is a genuine complaint.

HOWEVER! There are good fansubs if you look hard enough. This may mean you might have to look harder than the first fansub torrent you see of a show you want. It’s hard work but it’s worth it. Especially if you find one where Noe speaks her own words instead of a boy mouthing her dialogue in her voice, which is quite disturbing to watch.

Then there’s the whole Otaking video debate, which was a video I found funny in parts, but it was less informative than I had hoped. The beginning was really informative, then it just got ranty. But as long as Noe can speak her own dialogue, I’m happy. Take Kaiba for example, there are wonderful fansubs of that show with minimal pretension in their translation. This is a show with universal appeal and not many Japanese references, only the Superflat/Osamu Tezuka aesthetic gives it away as purely Japanese, as well as the mood of the Anime itself. So full marks for Kaiba fansubbers who respect the show enough to not plaster their names all over it. Translated credits as well, so extra points.

Fansubbers fill a need in Anime fan society to expose an Anime show to a Western audience who may not be fluent in Japanese. To complain about them would be to ignore their importance. I’m really more concerned about Anime directors getting their royalties eventually than fansub fonts, as some fansub fonts can be simple and effective as keeping to the mood and aesthetic of the show itself.

Latest Updates: Sunday June 1st 2008

I’ve finally given in and found a fansub of True Tears. Also I’ve been watching Kaiba.

Because of homework I won’t be posting reviews for a while yet, but do have hope that I will return as soon as the transcript of my focus group for my Society and Culture class is done. But I’ve been a lot more relaxed since I’ve been getting on top of my homework instead of avoiding it. I’ve also been getting a lot of other things done like drawing and writing my own illustrated books.

So far Kaiba looks amazing, seriously, it’s one of the most well developed Anime I’ve ever seen. My eyes were psychically bleeding with happiness when I saw how awesome it was. I’ve only seen two episodes of it but more episodes are accessible to me so I can see what happens next.

Lucky Star will probably be put on hold for a while yet, at least until I finish some things to do with school. From all the fuss over it it looks like it’s going to be around once I get back from the Land of Study, probably it will never truly go away until the last otaku is dead of old age.

I suppose I’ve been neglecting my needs by not recognising fansubs as relevant to my Anime watching schedule. Well, I’ll be transcribing a video focus group now, so keep on trucking.

The Creative Person’s View of Anime Watching

Osamu Tezuka wouldn’t condone war, but he would kick your arse in a creative arts contest.

I write books and illustrate them. That’s what I do for a living, and I’ve decided that’s what I want to do with my life. But how does this affect how I factor in leisure time to watch Anime?

Secret Men’s Business Round Robin: Anime Club

The first topic of the Secret Men’s Business Anime Round Robin is here, and it’s time for us guys to talk about Anime in the manliest way possible without being sexist. But what is the topic?

ANIME CLUB

The way I think about Anime fandom for myself is a hobby that I keep separate from my home life. You do not talk about Anime Club, just like you don’t talk about Fight Club. Anime Club became the reason to interact with a culture your parents have no idea you’re into, though unlike Fight Club, where the scars are evidence you’re up to something, the tucked-away volumes of One Piece manga and Osamu Tezuka art prints are the sort of “scars” that denote my membership of the secret society I call Anime Club.

In Australia where I live, guys who watch Anime are either considered immature or quiet geniuses who are dangerous because they know more about things than other people do. As for the latter category, this may have been someone you’ve known for years, and when this buttoned down little nerd is triggered by something like “Naruto is such a good show”, you better run and hide before he starts telling you that there was a man called Osamu Tezuka who not only created Anime as an artform, but produced things a thousand fold better than anything Naruto can be proud of. When the shock of all this is over, the nerd nods, and everything, including the conversation, changes back to normal.

Anime Club is the reason for many to bone up on their Japanese, but it’s not always the case. I always struggled with the lackluster assistance I got in my Japanese class, to the extent that I dropped it as a school subject. But Anime gave me the chance to take another look at that language and culture, in a way my Japanese teacher only gave me a glimpse of, watching the subtitled version of Spirited Away in Year 9.

What goes on during Anime Club and what goes on during your everyday life, you’re pretty much a completely different person. You don’t tell anybody about your hobby not because you’re insecure about it, it’s because there are certain implications of that hobby that may cause people to distrust or fear you. Sure, you have the occasional person who knows what you’re talking about when you bring up Miyazaki, but other than that the people you know are unaware that you’ve got at least ten Anime box sets hidden behind the clutter of books you might own, right next to your Manga and Graphic Novels.

But what has this all got to do with masculinity? Well now, here’s the kick: men often have secret hobbies or interests they don’t talk to anyone about, for a number of reasons they don’t tell a soul. Billy Elliot is a movie about a boy who wants to become a ballet dancer. It’s not Anime, but it illustrates a point. Ballet for Billy is considered “effeminate”, and likewise with Anime, Anime is considered “immature” for a young man to be interested in. Yet it exists, in the underground of social society, like a sort of Fight Club nobody talks about to people other than their own kind. The need for men to have private gatherings has existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and Anime is one of those things that is often enjoyed in secret.

Because it is a controversial and sometimes even subversive hobby to have, lots of men I know who enjoy Anime keep their yaps shut about it. You can spot the signs of Anime fandom subtly with these people: large headphones worn on their heads akin to Neku’s in The World Ends With You, a large collection of J-Pop on their iPods, and justifying their searching of information about the creator of Dragonball by saying they are doing a Visual Arts case study on him (which is more than likely to be the truth rather than a falsehood, Anime Club members mix work and pleasure on a cunning level of ingenuity). When you notice the kind of music they listen to, don’t ask “is that techno” but instead “Is that J-Pop?”. However, this method of greeting a fan of Anime who listens to J-Pop doesn’t work on people who actually do listen to techno and electronica, who may also wear headphones like Neku in The World End With You.

But if you can find Anime fans in Australia, you can meet some interesting people with interesting motives for their fandom. One Anime fan I met enjoyed Anime because of how it was different to what society was used to. And why not? It’s a subversive hobby to have, why not rebel against authority with Astro Boy instead of with emo clothes and Dashboard Confessional on their mp3 players? It may seem a commercialised subculture to be part of, but why is it that people don’t feel like average consumers as Anime fans? Perhaps because Anime fans are an entirely different breed of counter-culture than some think it is.

And that’s the next topic, for another day: “Is Anime too commercialised, or is it something entirely different to mindless consumerism as society understands it?”. Until then, keep it manly everybody. Unless you’re a girl, which is perfectly acceptable.

Damn, damn and triple damn

I may have to drop Lucky Star for a while until I can find a better source of streamed video for it, as Youtube seems to have started to take the Lucky Star videos down. Pity really, I was starting to enjoy it.

Oh well, there’s good news, and it’s called Surf the Channel dot com. If I’m correct, I should be able to view every episode of Gurren Lagaan through a stream. I watched the first episode, but you won’t be seeing a review for it until I watch it again when I’m less tired. I’m not going to butcher it like I did with the My Neighbor Totoro review. Not again.

But Gurren Lagaan could be my new recent Anime fix, and it’s quite entertaining. What’s even better is that there’s a high quality stream for it on Surf the Channel. So you might be seeing some interesting episode reviews in the not too distant future…

[Edited to say: Found a better provider of Lucky Star on Youtube, this one has much clearer picture too. Completely different translation though...]

Lucky Star Episode 2: Lucky Star and the Model Reader

This was my favorite clip from the episode, the imagining of the different dentist services for men and women was quite amusing. The earlier part of the episode was funny too, exploring the ethics and logistics of holiday study, mixed in with some videogaming know-how from the blue haired girl I forget the name of (who oddly enough seems to be the main character, but because most of the four girls look similar apart from pink haired Miyuki with glasses, it’s hard to attach a name to a face).

Lucky Star continues to be amusing, but also a huge postmodern joke on the part of Anime fans who watch way too much of it. Umberto Eco’s theory of open and closed texts makes the joke easier to understand in its own philosophical way (and I bet you thought Lucky Star rots your brain, not so with Eco I say!). Here is what Umberto Eco has to say on the matter, quoted in Gary P. Radford’s On Eco book:

An author can foresee an ‘ideal reader affected by an ideal insomnia’…, able to master different codes and eager to deal with the text as a maze of many issues. But in the last analysis what matters is not the various issues in themselves, but the maze-like structure of the text. You cannot use the text as you want, but only as the text wants you to use it. An open text, however ‘open’ it can be, cannot afford whatever interpretation (Eco, 1979, p. 9).

So if Lucky Star has a “model reader” of otaku as a text, then it is constructed to cater for them. It is a maze of jokes related to all manner of otaku pop culture things, from video games to the rise of manga over literary novels, even a Harry Potter reference got into this second episode of Lucky Star. It clearly has a meaning that can only be decoded by its model reader, the otaku literate viewer.

This may have something to do with why not everybody gets the jokes in Lucky Star, especially newcomers to Anime viewing. What implications this has on my interpretation of Lucky Star remains to be seen, and will be seen as I view more episodes.

Martin’s Poetics of Reality-Conscious Fandom

Some fans of Anime and other related media find the stereotypes of fanboys/fangirls embarrassing.

newgeekphilosopher takes on Lucky Star

It’s the show people love to hate. But does it deserve the hate it gets? And what am I talking about anyway?

I’m talking about Lucky Star, of course. This masterpiece of otaku-bait is “slice-of-life”, meaning that it follows the discussions of characters about random things in a way normal people would. Of course, we all know that Lucky Star has characters that are far from normal or completely realistic, but I don’t think griping about the show will solve anything about it.

This post inspired me to look up Lucky Star on Youtube for myself. And boy was I surprised. I was introduced to a world of Anime I did not know, since I usually avoided extremely “moe” shows like this one. But lo-and-behold, eight minutes and forty seconds later I see there’s a charm that is in this show from watching this video:

And I can honestly say it didn’t make me wretch. I have no idea why some otaku find these girls remotely attractive as the objects of their fantasies, because the pink haired one with glasses is the only one who looks anything like a real young woman. And for a show like Lucky Star, it’s easy to judge and snicker at it being unrealistic, but I’ve read, watched, and even written, dialogue that is worse than this show offers. It’s not Shakespeare, but at least it’s not boring. Lucky Star isn’t supposed to be completely about art, it’s entertainment that involves girls talking about everyday things. It’s a slice of life. And I’ll definitely want a second helping.

Speed Racer goes Crazy

Considering my fondness for Speed Racer it was only a matter of time before I came across a fan-edit like this. So here’s “Speed Racer Goes Crazy”, a fan-edit episode of Speed Racer that looks so much like the real thing, it’s scary.