Some guy hates anime fans

[Liquid Skin]

Some people can keep their heads on but others cant, dont bash them just because (may the lord have mercy on them) they feel passionate about something enough to defend it.

But they're the people who are indirectly responsible for this article. It was written to tick off anime fans. If anime fans weren't so easily ticked off, it wouldn't have been written.

Bottom line: if anime fans don't want articles like this to be written, then they should stop being such an easy target for ridicule.

"If jews/gays/blacks/teens/chavs/goths werent such an easy target....."

Im not saying its the same thing but come on, you can say that about any group - minority or majortiy. No-one is safe from ridicule on the internet, i know that but i feel like people like that should reap their just rewards from their words. Im so sick of the gargantuan and yet completely incorporeal notion of free speech being used to cover ignorant hicks like that.

 

[Tachi]

Freedom of speech only goes so far, the borderlines appear when freedom of speech turns from being a opinion into an insult.
in a ideal world there wouldnt be people around to belittle or insult others, whether that be a stereotypical group or a individual. however this is not a ideal world and those people do exist. i agree to defending (in this matter anime) but its better to just ignore them.

Its like McIcy said; This guys probably a 30 year old reject living with his parents. and most probably never been laid.

So i urge you to not waste your time with this loser,

 

[MonkeyFunk]

"If jews/gays/blacks/teens/chavs/goths werent such an easy target....."

Im not saying its the same thing but come on, you can say that about any group - minority or majortiy.

But how many of those groups are defined by their cluelessness, as anime fans are?

I've said it before: in my experience, anime fans generally know almost nothing about non-Japanese animation. That's largely why they identify themselves as anime fans, not animation fans.

There you have it. Black people are black because they're born that way; teens are teens because of their age; chavs and goths are defined by how they dress and behave; but anime fans are anime fans because of their knowledge of one area and ignorance of another. If they all learnt about the rest of the world's animation, then the whole concept of anime fandom would effectively vanish, taking articles like this one with it. Simple!

Im so sick of the gargantuan and yet completely incorporeal notion of free speech being used to cover ignorant hicks like that.

Oh, trust me, I'm not defending the article - I think it's tosh. I'm just putting the blame where it's due: the fact that anime fandom is responsible for drivel like this being written is one of the many, many things wrong with it.

 

[Rui]

Was mostly ignoring this thread but just want to add my spin on the latest posts.

I'd say anime fans have a greater predilection for being receptive to foreign works than the average stereotypical football fan pulled off the street - might just be me but I have always had far more luck convincing my anime-watching (non-otaku ) friends to see a cartoon I like than my non-anime-liking family members. Plus a lot of us in my generation came into it from loving things like Mysterious Cities Of Gold or The Last Unicorn or Transformers growing up. There's the odd loon who decries anything not made by a 100% Japanese staff but the lines are pretty blurred even at the best of times and a lot of fans are open-minded enough to be able to appreciate both.

Sure, it's obviously anime-inspired, but I'm currently collecting Avatar (The Last Airbender) which is an American production (and aimed at people 10 years younger than me but I don't mind). It's animated in Korea like most other things these days but it's not anime in the strict sense at all. And I'd be first in line to collect extra volumes of Gargoyles, should Disney decide to release them. Another "foreign" animation product - that happens to be very good IMO

Anime is animation, the two fields aren't necessarily mutually exclusive the way some internet fans might think. And really, is that any different from saying black people like rap and hate classical music therefore being black is being cut off from a large field of knowledge? Of course there are black classical musicians out there, and there's no reason being black has anything whatsoever to do with their proficiency. Generalising based on a small minority of people who can be classified one way or another is a bad move. I'm sure a mean anti-goth/anti-chav/anti-teen/anti-jew etc would say that the group they hate is clueless too; doesn't mean it's fact.

R

 

[Azura]

lol the comments underneath made me laugh.... goes to show some people never accept something that is different.
I laughed especially at the neo-goth outcast and social out cast line lol im a normal person and love anime and you cant compare anime to western cartoons or studio ghibi films with pixar ones! both are different in their own rights. People have the right to watch what they want
The article did make me laugh though! lol

 

[MonkeyFunk]

There's the odd loon who decries anything not made by a 100% Japanese staff but the lines are pretty blurred even at the best of times and a lot of fans are open-minded enough to be able to appreciate both.

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History ... index.html
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=10519
http://www.anime-on-line.com/anime/index.htm

I wouldn't say that any of these articles awere written by "loons". The authors seem perfectly sober-minded to me. But they all show, to varying degrees, clear prejudice against non-Japanese animation. And here's a post from this very forum:

English animation sucks, it always has, always will.

As somebody who was once told at an anime forum that I deserve to have my hands cut off for drawing Spirited Away fanart which deviated from the Ghibli house style, I can vouch that this prejudice actually runs pretty damn deep in the anime community.

And really, is that any different from saying black people like rap and hate classical music therefore being black is being cut off from a large field of knowledge?

Yes, it's totally different. Anime fans aren't an ethnicity. A black person can't stop being black (I'll resist the temptation to make a Michael Jackson reference), but an anime fan can quite easily choose identify themselves as something else, such as an aniamtion fan or Japanese film fan. There's also the fact that not all black people like rap, but - by definition - all anime fans like anime.

Look at it this way: we have people who chose to identify themselves as anime fans, not animation fans; they make anime websites, not animation websites. And then they start showing prejudice towards non-Japanese animation. I think there's a connection.

Show of hands: who here knows who Yuri Norstein is? I don't remember seeing any of his films named in this thread, which consists mainly of South Park, Adult Swim and mainstreamy stuff like that. Now, to put things in context, the AWN columnist Chris Robinson once complained that the animation community has too many "Norstein-weaned wankers".

Think about that. Norstein is a figure so well-known in the animation community that at least one dissident is sick of his status. But yet, he seems to be almost unknown in anime fandom.

 

[Rui]

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History ... index.html
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=10519
http://www.anime-on-line.com/anime/index.htm

I wouldn't say that any of these articles awere written by "loons". The authors seem perfectly sober-minded to me. But they all show, to varying degrees, clear prejudice against non-Japanese animation.

The last one sounded balanced to me. The distinction made is in loanword usage - it even acknowledges that "In Japan, 'anime' would be any animated production, from Disney to Legend of the Overfiend. Anything that is animated, be it Japanese, English or French. Outside Japan, though, 'anime' tends to refer, specifically, to Japanese animation.". I bet I can post three random links to websites made by open minded fans too. To assume the fanbase is blinkered more so than other fandoms is unfair.

Loons was tongue in cheek I confess, but anyone who sinks too far into "fanboyism", be it based in anime, games, books, comics, fishing, movies, music, or anything, will often come off as having tunnel vision and a bias to their favourite thing. There are anime fans however who cannot be described this way, and I feel we are not a tiny minority. Maybe less noisy than the "JP is good WESTERN is bad" crowd but there are a lot of us out there. And I do think that amongst older fans, it's the dominant attitude.

English animation sucks, it always has, always will.

As somebody who was once told at an anime forum that I deserve to have my hands cut off for drawing Spirited Away fanart which deviated from the Ghibli house style, I can vouch that this prejudice actually runs pretty damn deep in the anime community.

To be fair I could pull quotes off this forum which state clearly that gay people are evil, women don't have the same capacity as men to think, yours truly a female and FF8 is the best Final Fantasy. There's a lot of rubbish posted on this forum (and on any other public forum, on any topic - examples can be supplied if needed) but it mustn't be taken as representation of the majority. Looking at post counts here and the number of actual users, it seems again that the loud minority makes up the bulk of content and the majority only voice opinions on carefully chosen topics.

If someone said that here about your fanart though, I'd expect several people would loudly disagree with them. Including me. What a dumb thing they said to you :O

Yes, it's totally different. Anime fans aren't an ethnicity. A black person can't stop being black (I'll resist the temptation to make a Michael Jackson reference), but an anime fan can quite easily choose identify themselves as something else, such as an aniamtion fan or Japanese film fan. There's also the fact that not all black people like rap, but - by definition - all anime fans like anime.

Look at it this way: we have people who chose to identify themselves as anime fans, not animation fans; they make anime websites, not animation websites. And then they start showing prejudice towards non-Japanese animation. I think there's a connection.

And you're generalising anime fans based on this outspoken minority; I don't see how that's different.

All anime fans like anime, yes, but not all anime fans like all anime. Or even like all other anime fans. Hentai, BL, kiddy anime, Eva, all very divisive topics in the anime fandom. Miyazaki vs Disney is another hot topic, and I'm sure there are plenty of Disney fans in the ranks of anime otaku too. I'm sure we had something like a Disney: Terrible or Great? thread here not long ago too where many posters were very much in favour of some western works.

I of course agree with you rationally on the race thing, though I was arguing a slightly different side of it. And it's more mutable than colour of skin for sure (though that shouldn't even be an issue in our society at all!) but I wouldn't find it easy to not be an anime fan one day. Nor would I want it to be. I could pretend not to like it, but I'm not in this hobby for socialising or bragging rights, I'm here because it is *me*. It's easiest to say I'm an anime fan, though I like games and movies too (mostly foreign, but from too many different countries to list). Arthouse fan might work, but then I love tacky dross like Shounen Jump anime too. Any kind of attempt to fit complex human beings into like categories is inaccurate at best, so prejudice against those categories based on the actions of a few insecure, noisy whiners is doing a disservice to everyone else lumped in there.

Show of hands: who here knows who Yuri Norstein is? I don't remember seeing any of his films named in this thread, which consists mainly of South Park, Adult Swim and mainstreamy stuff like that. Now, to put things in context, the AWN columnist Chris Robinson once complained that the animation community has too many "Norstein-weaned wankers".

Think about that. Norstein is a figure so well-known in the animation community that at least one dissident is sick of his status. But yet, he seems to be almost unknown in anime fandom.

I did not know him; now I do. Thank you. But I didn't know him before I was an anime fan either, despite loving non-JP animation even then. And I'd wager a vast majority of people who identify as anime fans don't know many of the greats either - I'd be surprised if more than a handful of the download generation could even recognise the style of Tezuka or knew what Rose of Versailles was. Ignorance is widespread both in and out of this anime world.

R

 

[MaxonTreik]

But how many of those groups are defined by their cluelessness, as anime fans are?

I've said it before: in my experience, anime fans generally know almost nothing about non-Japanese animation. That's largely why they identify themselves as anime fans, not animation fans.

I find that hard to believe since every anime fan I know (including myself) is also a fan of some western animation. You can't mix us regulars in with otakus.

 

[Jaymii]

You can't mix us regulars in with otakus.

Indeed, and also backing up another pointed raised earlier about us not knowing some guy called Yuri Norstein and watching "mainstream" cartoons. In case you didn't notice - Its more difficult for a show not to be mainstream, these days, There are levels of it but everything (Western or Japanese) are usually mainstream in a sense. These cartoons come out in the hundreds since the Internet boom. People know what shows they like and from that they find others. I like Ren & Stimpy, Heck, Its Mainstream as hell but that doesn't deprive it from being good. I can say the same about One Piece.

Things get a albeit fuzzy when you get to a certain stage, though. Anime fans and teenage/adult animation fans are already niche so I'm talking mainstream in a sense they are "well-known" within them circles.

 

[Liquid Skin]

Aye, i think that the writer of that particular article seems to have blurred the lines between fan and otaku/obsessed fan. I like anime but i certainly dont like every anime out there and I certainly dont spend every waking hour and every penny of my earnings on increasing that interest, its just a mindless hobby, pure and simple.

"No i cannot name the particular style of such and such" "No i cannot name whatever's first film" and do you know what? I dont really care. Some people like to research; others enjoy it for what it is on the outside, for what they can skim off the surface, and there always seems to be this elitist attitude (in any area of the arts) of "if you cant list a bunch of obscure facts" you cant enjoy the production - or even claim to like it. Yes it always helps to dig deeper, to finding those little easter eggs or the prevailent themes, or the lil stories of "how they did this" and w"hat made that" but dont take the fun out of the experience by digging so far you cant see the sun.
My bro likes GITS for the fight scenes - not the philosophy, i on the other hand love it for exactly the opposite reasons and i dont jump down my his throat as most people (on the internet) are want to do.

Im not going to go out, cover myself with petrol and chow down on a match in defence of anime because yes - theres bad sides to it, as there is with every area of human existence. But i wont allow one guy's bile-fuelled words potentially sway people (more than they already are) into thinking that anime is the refuge of perverts and kids. Its already got a warped enough perception as it is and we dont need guys like this fuelling the fire.

FF8 is the best Final Fantasy

It IS! It was my first final fantasy! And you know what they say about your first *longingly sighs*

 

[MonkeyFunk]

http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History ... index.html
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=10519
http://www.anime-on-line.com/anime/index.htm

I wouldn't say that any of these articles awere written by "loons". The authors seem perfectly sober-minded to me. But they all show, to varying degrees, clear prejudice against non-Japanese animation.

The last one sounded balanced to me. The distinction made is in loanword usage - it even acknowledges that "In Japan, 'anime' would be any animated production, from Disney to Legend of the Overfiend. Anything that is animated, be it Japanese, English or French. Outside Japan, though, 'anime' tends to refer, specifically, to Japanese animation.".

I posted the third article because it's a great example of how subtle this prejudice can be. In this case, it's encapsulated in a single, throwaway comment:

Unlike in the west, anime has a huge variety of genres - it is not only for children.

This is a badly-worded sentence and can be inteprreted two different ways. You can read it as saying that the Japanese animation imported to the west has a limited variety of genres and is only for children, but this seems an odd thing to say on an American anime selling site. So, I intepreted it as saying that Western animation has a limited variety of genres and is only for children.

The rest of the article is fine. The author knows their stuff when it comes to Japanese cartoons. It just goes to show that you don't have to be screaming "WESTERN CARTOONS ARE TEH SUX0RZ" to be prejudiced.

[And you're generalising anime fans based on this outspoken minority; I don't see how that's different.

Actually, I'd say I'm drawing on my own experience. A few years ago I would happily have referred to myself as an anime fan. Then, as I learnt more and more about the rest of the world's cartoons, I started to see that designation as a trifle limiting, and began thinking of myself as an animation fan. Still do to this day - I don't like anime any less, I just see my fondness for it as part of something larger. And, really, can anyone here say for sure that they won't go through the same process?

Belonging to a fandom is really an identity thing. People see you as an anime fan because you choose to identify yourself as an anime fan. I know lots of people who like anime to one degree or another (they might, I dunno, have an old VHS of Akira lying around or something) but don't see themselves as anime fans. They're not the ones getting their knickers in a twist over the Cinema Blend article - they'd just shrug it off as just more goofy tosh bubbling up fom the net.

It might seem a little kooky at first - the idea that you can like anime but not be an anime fan, per se. But really, I'm not the only person saying that. Here's a posting from an animation forum that I hang out at:

Oi. I guess it figures the pig-headed anime fans would miss the point completely. I love anime, but...

He loves anime, but disassociates himself from anime fandom. An even clearer example can be found here:

http://azusa.leamonde.net/animerant.html

Which brings me back to my original point...

Any kind of attempt to fit complex human beings into like categories is inaccurate at best, so prejudice against those categories based on the actions of a few insecure, noisy whiners is doing a disservice to everyone else lumped in there.

...if they don't like the way their category is seen, then they can leave it, just as I did.

I find that hard to believe since every anime fan I know (including myself) is also a fan of some western animation. You can't mix us regulars in with otakus.

What Western animation? Do they know as much about Western animation as they do about Japanese animation? Most people like The Simpsons and Pixar movies, but that doesn't mean they have a particularly deep knowledge of the subject.

 

[Rui]

I read the third article more casually, and assumed they meant that culturally the west tends to produce less animation aimed at older audiences (which I doubt is terribly true - even in the US there's tons of it now and in a lot of mainland Europe animation has always had a decent showing). I would argue that there is probably more "adult" mainstream animation in Japan than in the UK itself but that's probably due to its own reputation; the more people associate anime with experimental grown up artsy stuff, the more is made to fill the demand. It's certainly a lot more culturally accepted over there amongst non-fans with the penetration of manga compared to here, but then it's a lot more culturally accepted in my family's region of Italy too - which last time I checked was still "the west"

So I'll grant that it's biased to some extent (being a UK anime distributor that isn't terribly surprising) but I think its badly worded intent was not to condemn the whole western animation industry (things like The Simpsons/Zim/Family Guy etc blow a massive industry-sized hole in the comment alone and they're just the mainstream types) - it just phrased it in an ugly way. However, I would say the assumption that you're not biased, just speaking from experience, is equally open to nitpicking. I freely acknowledge I'm biased. Just in this case, I happen to like both hobbies and worry at the acceptance of mocking one side of myself (the anime fan) just because a handful of people who also claim to be anime fans act like idiots.

I disagree with the way you've summarised how we categorise one another, and I think I'll have to agree to disagree on this as it's a personal thing. I don't see my anime fan status as a limitation, preventing me branching out - it's just one of many tags I wear if forced to categorise myself. I'm an anime fan, an arthouse fan, a pop music fan, a metal music fan, a fan of BL, a fan of GL, a gamer, a Mac fan - some of these are "contradictory", but I see the tags as inclusive rather than exclusive. I think this is where our perceptions have diverged.

Although I am arguing against the people who, even subtley, think all JP animation is superior to all western animation - I am far beyond a casual anime fan myself. I love anime. I spend thousands on my hobby. I don't like every anime ever, not even close to 50% of every anime ever, but I like a *lot*. Still, I feel immune to this concept that I cannot love my anime habit without rejecting similar projects with different origins or ideas. That I love anime doesn't to me prevent me from loving Futurama. Perhaps it's just because I'm older than the average fan nowadays but I don't feel the need to constantly watch my back and make sure I'm not accidentally liking something that goes against someone else's idea of what my fandom includes.

Incidentally if I have to be grouped with people like the quotee who blithely described all anime fans as pig-headed, I'd rather not. They're as bad as people who say a cartoon can't be good if the director wasn't raised in Japan. If the article, subsequent posts and those like it (googling weeaboo, animu or so on brings up countless such ingenious rants by prejudiced human beings) only condemned antisocial jerk fans, I'd be fine with it - but tarring everyone with the same brush just because we particularly like cartoons with a certain cultural vibe is hurtful.

Sorry for the ramble, slow day :/

R

 

[MonkeyFunk]

I disagree with the way you've summarised how we categorise one another, and I think I'll have to agree to disagree on this as it's a personal thing. I don't see my anime fan status as a limitation, preventing me branching out - it's just one of many tags I wear if forced to categorise myself. I'm an anime fan, an arthouse fan, a pop music fan, a metal music fan, a fan of BL, a fan of GL, a gamer, a Mac fan - some of these are "contradictory", but I see the tags as inclusive rather than exclusive. I think this is where our perceptions have diverged.

Suppose so. I think another factor is that I'm an animator myself - currently an amateur, but hoping to do things professionally - so I guess I tend to overthink the issue as it's close to my heart. When I have to wade through people telling me that everything I create sucks simply because of my geographical location and then turning round and becoming outraged when somebody makes a jab at them, then I can't help but get a little ticked off.

Incidentally if I have to be grouped with people like the quotee who blithely described all anime fans as pig-headed, I'd rather not. They're as bad as people who say a cartoon can't be good if the director wasn't raised in Japan. If the article, subsequent posts and those like it (googling weeaboo, animu or so on brings up countless such ingenious rants by prejudiced human beings) only condemned antisocial jerk fans, I'd be fine with it - but tarring everyone with the same brush just because we particularly like cartoons with a certain cultural vibe is hurtful.

Yes, I can definitely see where you're coming from there. I've noticed the alarming trend in anime fandom of sitting around smugly sneering at other anime fans' foibles while totally failing to bring anything positive to the table. Well, okay, I've been guilty of that myself, but at least I introduced one person to Norstein in this discussion...

 

[Rui]

It IS! It was my first final fantasy! And you know what they say about your first *longingly sighs*

Hehe

I liked a lot of things about it, just found the handful of flaws destroyed its replayability for me. But I know what you mean, if the flaws I found irritating don't actually bother you or if it has nostalgia value there's no shame in that!

R

 

[Rui]

Suppose so. I think another factor is that I'm an animator myself - currently an amateur, but hoping to do things professionally - so I guess I tend to overthink the issue as it's close to my heart. When I have to wade through people telling me that everything I create sucks simply because of my geographical location and then turning round and becoming outraged when somebody makes a jab at them, then I can't help but get a little ticked off.

A lot of it's probably the age-old "pick on the easy target" gang attitude, both towards yourself when you try to do something creative in this case without being born in the Holy Land (not serious there - we're all humans wherever we are), and towards anime-geeks for being well, anime-geeks. It's hard not to conform, but I think it's rewarding. Good luck with your future projects! And do post things about them here, the bullies will always try to grab their pound of flesh wherever you go but common sense usually prevails (if not, I'll just talk at them until they get bored).

R

 

[MaxonTreik]

What Western animation? Do they know as much about Western animation as they do about Japanese animation? Most people like The Simpsons and Pixar movies, but that doesn't mean they have a particularly deep knowledge of the subject.

And neither does liking non-mainstream stuff. Stop pigeon-holing people.

 

[MonkeyFunk]

What Western animation? Do they know as much about Western animation as they do about Japanese animation? Most people like The Simpsons and Pixar movies, but that doesn't mean they have a particularly deep knowledge of the subject.

And neither does liking non-mainstream stuff.

Actually.... yes, I'd say it does, more or less.

Stop pigeon-holing people.

Why? Some people deserve to be pigeon-holed.

Nobody knows everything. I know next to nothing about Iranian cinema, so I'd have no problems with being pigeon-holed as someone ignorant about that subject. Don't see any reason why I should treat anime fans any differently.

 

[Hokum]

Yawn, the guy is trying to get ratings, he's the ken rockwell of films.

Just ignore the bloke.

 

[Will-O'-The-Wisp]

He's more than entitled to his opinion though his reasons for hating anime is ********, IMO.

 

[Rui]

I'm confused as always - a lot of people here speak of the reviled anime fan (including some of those ranters linked) despite, to a normal person, clearly being one themselves. We're all posting about anime fans in an anime discussion section of an anime forum. I think we're all pretty far gone no matter how cool we secretly consider ourselves

Hating anyone you haven't met based on preconceptions rooted in a few character traits is universally dumb, anyway. Likewise condemning that which you haven't seen. Pigeon-holing is useful for making sweeping generalisations but nothing more; humans are complex, contradictory creatures and none can be effectively summed up in a single category.

I don't personally like the oneupmanship attitude some insecure fans have in thinking that perceived knowledge about a field directly correlates to a person's level of fandom, either. People want to sweepingly judge others but refuse to listen to the judgements of others if it threatens their self-image in any way. It doesn't work like that.

It's a hobby, it makes people happy; if people are jerks pick on the individuals, not everyone else who happens to like watching Monkey D Luffy punch stuff too. That's all.

R