UKA post their annual anime awards

[IncendiaryLemon]

In all seriousness, how often do you see anime release bootlegs these days? I have never seen a bootleg anime release in the wild, only ever from shots posted on here and ANN. This whole "everyone owns a bootleg" thing seems bizarre to me, because I know for a fact that I have never even had the opportunity to buy one.

The only "anime" merch I've seen that's bootleg is some questionable Pokemon merchandise.

eBay is full of them. Almost any title you name, bootlegs will be there top nine times out of ten. If you're a naive, new anime buyer, who searching for Sword Art Online (chose a popular title for demonstrations sake) and you see this:

You can't really blame them, if they don't know any better, to get the two whole seasons for £20 rather than 7 episodes for £15...

 

[NoSurprises]

I like how eBay has an "Armour & Weapons" category, it's like I can equip myself for the inevitable post apocalyptic RPG scenario after buying my sword art bootlegs for tips on how to survive.

 

[Rui]

In all seriousness, how often do you see anime release bootlegs these days? I have never seen a bootleg anime release in the wild, only ever from shots posted on here and ANN. This whole "everyone owns a bootleg" thing seems bizarre to me, because I know for a fact that I have never even had the opportunity to buy one.

The only "anime" merch I've seen that's bootleg is some questionable Pokemon merchandise.

Ebay and Amazon Marketplace is still loaded with that stuff. More depressing are our big events like MCM Expo, which I outright stopped attending entirely because nobody on the committee cares enough to stop vendors selling openly fake merchandise and audio CDs (legitimate audio CDs at Expo are rarer than unicorns). I also reported the entire event to trading standards along with the individual vendors, but nothing is ever enforced in this country. It sucks.

R

 

[Hanners]

An official celebration of the best home video output each year would be ace though, UKA.

Yep, I absolutely agree. Our best physical release category is nice for showing off the shiny stuff, but I definitely want to better represent home video in our 2017 awards. The only real question we need to ponder is how to best achieve that!

 

[Buzz201]

eBay is full of them. Almost any title you name, bootlegs will be there top nine times out of ten. If you're a naive, new anime buyer, who searching for Sword Art Online (chose a popular title for demonstrations sake) and you see this:

You can't really blame them, if they don't know any better, to get the two whole seasons for £20 rather than 7 episodes for £15...

To be honest, I will only buy off companies I deem reputable for that reason, so it is mostly to do with me deliberately avoiding them. (Never eBay, only Amazon sellers I recognise.)

*Hums "Blame Aniplex" to theme of South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut's Blame Canada...*

Ebay and Amazon Marketplace is still loaded with that stuff. More depressing are our big events like MCM Expo, which I outright stopped attending entirely because nobody on the committee cares enough to stop vendors selling openly fake merchandise and audio CDs (legitimate audio CDs at Expo are rarer than unicorns). I also reported the entire event to trading standards along with the individual vendors, but nothing is ever enforced in this country. It sucks.

R

I'm sure I remember hearing UKA talking on their podcast about how one of the MCM events had been visited by Trading Standards and an unnamed industry member had assisted them in going round, identifying and confiscating bootlegs. Not all of your efforts were in vain.

I like how eBay has an "Armour & Weapons" category, it's like I can equip myself for the inevitable post apocalyptic RPG scenario after buying my sword art bootlegs for tips on how to survive.

If I understood the video games correctly, in Sword Art Online you can just swing your sword in the right direction and it will work, you don't even need a direct hit...

 

[serpantino]

In all seriousness, how often do you see anime release bootlegs these days? I have never seen a bootleg anime release in the wild, only ever from shots posted on here and ANN. This whole "everyone owns a bootleg" thing seems bizarre to me, because I know for a fact that I have never even had the opportunity to buy one.

The only "anime" merch I've seen that's bootleg is some questionable Pokemon merchandise.

I own a few from the early 2000's when the perfect collection was still a thing. They were high quality dual language bootleg releases with just the extras removed. I was a full time student with a low income back then and wasn't going to pay £15-£20 on a dvd with 4 episodes when I could get the entire season for around the same price at the same quality. The same goes for shows that weren't released here such as dears which is a terrible show (but I liked it ).

Nowadays there seems to be a flood of Malaysian rubbish which fits 26 episodes onto 2-3 disks. I wouldn't buy a bootleg knowingly nowadays because I feel the price of anime is far more accessible and I purchase with quality as a priority, although I do personally dislike the trend of CE's/LE's to artificially inflate the price.

 

[megalomaniac]

It doesn't even necessarily have to be physical, if they got the product right (DRM-free, HD, home video versions, incl. both dub and sub), they could probably find a viable digital alternative that doesn't cost them much to offer. Though, I appreciate it would probably take a lot to convince Japan to let them offer this and it would still annoy people who desperately wanted physical.

I don't think anybody's really saying it should be as cheasp as British or American TV, only that the price keeps going up and that's putting more and more people off. (Something which you yourself have basically just said.)

I know I certainly buy a lot less than I did a few years ago. Part of that is time, but a good chunk of it is the cost.

Personally I likes me some physical media. Great as it would be you're never going to get Japan to agree to DRM free digital and unless it's DRM free physical media wins hands down every time. As users of certain digital stores have found recently, DRM sucks when things go south.

 

[Buzz201]

I know I certainly buy a lot less than I did a few years ago. Part of that is time, but a good chunk of it is the cost.

Personally I likes me some physical media. Great as it would be you're never going to get Japan to agree to DRM free digital and unless it's DRM free physical media wins hands down every time. As users of certain digital stores have found recently, DRM sucks when things go south.

I never used it, but I thought AL's DTO service for Rec G was DRM-free? It just missed out on all the other features a digital product would have to have to work. I did realise it was a pipe-dream, but it's worth a try, rather than just assuming standard editions are dead.


I was amazed J-Novel Club were able to get publishers to agree to "DRM-free" ebooks (they have a purchaser identifier in them, so they aren't really DRM-free, but there's no usage restrictions on them). So maybe it could happen.

 

[Rui]

As one of the small number of people insane enough to have bought Rec G twice I can confirm the DTO 'simulcast' version came as standard DRM-free video files with decent quality, delivered without hassle aside from a few wonky delays episode by episode. However, I don't really like DTO (ironically if it has to exist I prefer it with DRM, i.e. in my iTunes library where I can just download/delete it freely and not care about faffing around with logins or my own storage). Streaming is my preference, on as many sites as humanly possible rather than sticking to lucrative exclusivity contracts which harm fans and stuff the pockets of distributors as a reward for limiting a show's audience. No Netflix exclusives, no Amazon Prime exclusives; get stuff up on Crunchyroll/Daisuki too so fans aren't being fleeced for half a dozen crummy subscriptions they don't want. And if Crunchyroll loses the license to something for the west it should go back into some massive global archive so fans can pay to watch it at will, not be lost to us forever as has sadly happened in the past.

The preference for physical is a quirk of our industry really. We're very lucky to be able to live in a time and country where people on non-ridiculous salaries can accumulate vast collections of all kinds of things; it's not normal in most regions, it was never historically normal here for media and in the future it's probably going to be abnormal once again. I ran out of space for physical stuff years ago (not that it stops me trying to get more...) which is always going to be a problem for anyone after a certain length of time, unless they live in a palace.

R

 

[Just Passing Through]

I've mentioned the paucity of physical releases in the awards on the UK Anime forums, so I won't reiterate it here, except to say that since the site itself offers a lot of content about physical releases, whether it's reviews or unboxing videos, then the end of year awards ought to reflect that.

As for piracy, complaining about piracy is like complaining about the rain. It's always going to be there in a consumerist society. Just rename the award to the "When Will Morons Stop Pirating Anime" award for biggest disappointment and be done with it.

Don't get me started on pricing and elitism though! That is my biggest bugbear right now. It all boils down to Aniplex! It's an unsustainable approach to pricing that's unfortunately filtering across the industry, and my fear is that companies will start pricing themselves out of business, especially as has already been mentioned, that it's very likely that the financial situation will get more difficult for people, belts will be tightened, pennies will be pinched, and there will be lot less disposable income in pockets.

I'd love to know what companies expect from their customers, as if I'm any indication, I'm probably not it. Since Anime Limited have been operating, I have bought just one of their Ultimate Editions, just one title appealed enough to me to warrant shelling out a three figure sum. For everything else, I'll wait for a standard release.

I used to buy anime all year round (still do after a fashion) and it was a mix of day 1 releases and sale items, probably 50/50. If I wanted something, I'd check my balance and then go buy it, and four to eight years ago, when the online retail landscape was more than just Amazon, there was always a sale on somewhere. In 2016, I bought maybe four items (including that Ultimate as day 1 purchases). Everything else has been on sale, the Sentai clearout at TRSI, The Madman Clearout at the start of the year, the Manganimatsu Amazon price crash, and the TRSI Christmas sale. Yesterday I started 2017 with the Madman Clearout again! We're talking 90/10 in favour of clearance and sale items, and I can't see that as customer behaviour that is sustainable for distributors. But it will take a crowbar to get me to spend more than £35 on a 2-cour series on Blu-ray as a day one purchase.

And as for Collector's Editions as where all the good stuff is at. I just got Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth through today. 12 episodes plus OVA on three discs, and three hours of on disc extra features, including mini animations, featurette, radio dramas, as well as a soundtrack CD. And Sentai released it as a standard edition. But I really do think a time will come when companies will have to stop doing business with Aniplex, they ask too much and they deliver even less with each passing year. When Kaze is the only company that will deliver Aniplex shows like Magi and Zvezda on Blu-ray, then you know something's wrong.

 

[Buzz201]

I kinda wonder if we're already seeing a bit of a silent backlash against Aniplex, from both consumers and companies.

Shows that might have been a big deal a few years ago didn't do as well as I was perhaps expecting. March Comes in Like a Lion didn't seem to do much, neither did Rewrite. The Asterisk War doesn't seem to have hit as big as AoA looked to be hoping for. Qualedia Code did literally nothing.

And how many AoA titles have actually been picked up from the past year or so. No Charlotte, no Classroom Crisis, no Gunslinger Stratos: The Animation, no Classmates, no Asterisk War, and more recently, no Occultic;Nine, no March Comes in Like a Lion, no Wagnaria WWW and there was a huge wait on GOD EATER's acquisition. Several mid and high-tier Aniplex shows haven't picked up for the UK (yet).

I wonder if companies have started saying no to Aniplex on some titles, or are at least waiting for Aniplex to offer them better conditions.

 

[Rui]

March Comes In Like A Lion is amazing. It took forever to get from 'good' to 'amazing' though and in Japan it's not really the hardcore otaku market that will be hyped for it. I think the shogi theme may also have destroyed its appeal to 90% of the western fanbase outright. If anything was destined for a CE niche release that would probably be it; the animation nuts would support the price.

Qualidea Code though...

I do think that Aniplex USA needs to release its clutches on anything other than a guaranteed success at this point, since it's serving nobody to have a bunch of titles unreleased (or DVD-only). A budget line for shows which missed the boat the first time around and never got picked up by anyone else would be nice.

R

 

[Buzz201]

Qualidea Code though...

R

You do not need to tell me. I scrapped a review of QC because I thought it was too negative.

I'm not even especially positive about things I like, so you can see how much I hated it, for even me to acknowledge I was too negative about something.

 

[Hanners]

You do not need to tell me. I scrapped a review of QC because I thought it was too negative.

I'm not even especially positive about things I like, so you can see how much I hated it, for even me to acknowledge I was too negative about something.

Getting off-topic here, but watch Girlish Number if you want to witness one of the creators of Qualidea Code's interpretation of how that anime adaptation was handled...

 

[NormanicGrav]

I kinda wonder if we're already seeing a bit of a silent backlash against Aniplex, from both consumers and companies.

Shows that might have been a big deal a few years ago didn't do as well as I was perhaps expecting. March Comes in Like a Lion didn't seem to do much, neither did Rewrite. The Asterisk War doesn't seem to have hit as big as AoA looked to be hoping for. Qualedia Code did literally nothing.

And how many AoA titles have actually been picked up from the past year or so. No Charlotte, no Classroom Crisis, no Gunslinger Stratos: The Animation, no Classmates, no Asterisk War, and more recently, no Occultic;Nine, no March Comes in Like a Lion, no Wagnaria WWW and there was a huge wait on GOD EATER's acquisition. Several mid and high-tier Aniplex shows haven't picked up for the UK (yet).

I wonder if companies have started saying no to Aniplex on some titles, or are at least waiting for Aniplex to offer them better conditions.

As someone who often picks up Aniplex sets from time to time, I do agree that their way of handling catalogue titles is stupid. Rather than keeping them streaming only they should have sub-licensed them to another distributor or given them a standard release after the fear period from importation has passed.

Apparently The Asterisk War is pretty big in the states from what I heard, which is interesting given the negative reception the show has. And despite being published by Aniplex, they haven't even picked up Qualedia Code and Rewrite which I found to be baffling. Rewrite surely would have done well for them given the Key connection (Angel Beats!, Charlotte etc.).

And how many AoA titles have actually been picked up from the past year or so. No Charlotte, no Classroom Crisis, no Gunslinger Stratos: The Animation, no Classmates, no Asterisk War, and more recently, no Occultic;Nine, no March Comes in Like a Lion, no Wagnaria WWW and there was a huge wait on GOD EATER's acquisition. Several mid and high-tier Aniplex shows haven't picked up for the UK (yet).

March Comes in Like a Lion has been acquired by Anime Limited thankfully. I expect The Irregular at Magic High School and Valvrave the Liberator to be acquired by MVM at some point given their ties with Hanabee.

I brought up Classmates and Classroom Crisis to Andrew back when I was at MCM Birmingham. Classmates is a definite no due to the film's niche audience and Classroom Crisis he hasn't seen yet (but I told him to check it out because it's a decent show in the end, it may not sell in collector's form but it deserves a normal Blu-ray release). I also begged Andrew to get Anohana and Katanagatari (two NISA shows that had their rights expired and moved back to Aniplex).

 

[Buzz201]

March Comes in Like a Lion has been acquired by Anime Limited thankfully. I expect The Irregular at Magic High School and Valvrave the Liberator to be acquired by MVM at some point given their ties with Hanabee.

I brought up Classmates and Classroom Crisis to Andrew back when I was at MCM Birmingham. Classmates is a definite no due to the film's niche audience and Classroom Crisis he hasn't seen yet (but I told him to check it out because it's a decent show in the end, it may not sell in collector's form but it deserves a normal Blu-ray release). I also begged Andrew to get Anohana and Katanagatari (two NISA shows that had their rights expired and moved back to Aniplex).

I knew I was missing something, I thought it would have been Asterisk War that tripped me up. Teach me to rely on Wikipedia.

I don't know about Valvrave, still the only series I've seen with an "Explicit Content" warning on Crunchyroll. Mr. Osomatsu had an actual depiction of bestiality and they didn't flag it. So Valvrave must be quite something.

I'm not personally interested in most of these series, it just seemed to me like maybe if Aniplex were slightly less difficult they'd mostly already have UK homes.

Getting off-topic here, but watch Girlish Number if you want to witness one of the creators of Qualidea Code's interpretation of how that anime adaptation was handled...

Thanks, sounds interesting. You are the second person to recommend me this series. I should probably move it further up my backlog.

 

[Demelza]

Re: biggest disappointment - Having now heard the discussion I'm fairly conflicted on my feelings. I still don't think it should have won but angling it from the fact the press are not very good at pointing people in a legal direction (especially for manga) is a direction I can respect and agree with.

The problem is I don't think the argument that CR/other services cover almost all the anime season to season and therefore no one should need to pirate really works. I do get where UKAN were coming from but it's clear that the industry is still lacking in places. For example this season we were promised Kiss Him, Not Me and it never appeared in the UK. It's a series that I'm really fond of and so while I didn't pirate I may have gone to the US for a season... I think that's where the problems lie though (among people like Manga who just sit on the rights for stuff) and until we have every single series available legally then there will always be someone whose going to pirate something and that's not going away. As long as someone wants to pirate something then it's likely sites like the one we won't name will stick around and therefore continue to have people visit because they're looking for the one thing they can't watch (or just something all their friends are talking about!) and then think they've hit the jackpot in finding a place that offers everything. The average newcomer/fan to/of anime doesn't often understand that sites like that are pirating either (as UKAN raised themselves) and so it's a bit of an endless cycle.

I think my other problem with it winning an award this year (although this is slightly unfair considering you come from the perspective of anime rather than the manga, although it is raised) is because manga piracy has dropped a heck of a lot. Some of this is because the bigger series like Naruto/Bleach have dropped off now and people aren't readily looking for scans but a lot of it is simply due to the fact the manga publishers have learnt how to deal with this kind of thing now. I used to read scans quite actively before WSJ finally made it to the UK and before CR launched their manga service but I don't now because I feel like the market offers everything I need to access it legally and most importantly without breaking the bank. A lot of my friends and those I know have followed suit with these as well, so at least in that regard I think we've started to win that battle. A lot of translation teams/scanlation groups have begun to drop off for smaller series too and while you'll always be able to find them, I think it's less easy for newcomers to fall into even with the mistaken push of the media that they use certain apps to access manga.

I don't really think there has been an increase in pirate sites for anime from last year though. I know one place has gained a lot of traction but really I think we're in the same position we were in during 2015. A lot of changes need to happen before this kind of thing really comes to an end (and it never truly will come to an end because there is always going to be someone who doesn't want to pay for CR or buy discs or otherwise) but I don't really think it needed to win an award for us to know how bad things are. I'd much rather have seen The Boy and Beast's missing release win or the Funinow mess...

I think what Buzz and other's have been saying about collector's editions pricing some anime fans out of the market is not really incorrect either, but that's a bit unrelated to my current points so I'll probably address it again later if I have anything to add that hasn't already been covered by everyone else.

P.S @Buzz201 - Definitely watch Girlish Number, it's amazing.

 

[Buzz201]

I've posted in this thread far too much. I'm excessively opinionated. I should really probably just start a blog.

As long as someone wants to pirate something then it's likely sites like the one we won't name will stick around and therefore continue to have people visit because they're looking for the one thing they can't watch (or just something all their friends are talking about!) and then think they've hit the jackpot in finding a place that offers everything. The average newcomer/fan to/of anime doesn't often understand that sites like that are pirating either (as UKAN raised themselves) and so it's a bit of an endless cycle.

I don't really think there has been an increase in pirate sites for anime from last year though. I know one place has gained a lot of traction but really I think we're in the same position we were in during 2015. A lot of changes need to happen before this kind of thing really comes to an end (and it never truly will come to an end because there is always going to be someone who doesn't want to pay for CR or buy discs or otherwise) but I don't really think it needed to win an award for us to know how bad things are. I'd much rather have seen The Boy and Beast's missing release win or the Funinow mess...

P.S @Buzz201 - Definitely watch Girlish Number, it's amazing.

From the conversations I've had at my anime society, I don't think Crunchyroll needs everything, I think it needs everything big. I'm not sure most pirating fans care about the 8 different girls cycling shows it has or the fact it doesn't have The Eccentric Family anymore, when it's missing half of Naruto, large quantities of Fairy Tail (FT is much more popular than I would have thought, it's a miracle I made it out of society alive when I said I wasn't a fan), all of One Piece, no Sailor Moon, no Dragon Ball, it doesn't have the Attack on Titan OVAs, there's no One-Punch Man and for the longest time it was missing everything Funimation had.

I'm personally very happy with Crunchyroll's selection, especially now I've started frequent trips to the USA, and I understand that logistically it would be near impossible for Crunchyroll to achieve what I think it has to. But ultimately the glaring omissions are always going to play in people's minds more than the hidden gems.

The other thing I've noticed is that people aren't ignorant of Crunchyroll. They know Voldemort ("the website that shall not be named" ) is illegal, they just don't care. I've spoken to people that have used Crunchyroll, liked the selection and the service, they just didn't want to pay. Maybe that means they're ignorant of the free service and Crunchyroll should be doing more to promote/improve it. It's a difficult balance though, because when funds are limited, everytime they do something nice for free customers, it potentially involves taking away from paying customers. If you reduce the wait for free customers, how many paying customers then decide they can deal with SD and ads and stop paying. You do end up with this unfortunate situation where Crunchyroll is forced to make it's free service suffer in order to keep paying customers happy.

I did go on a Twitter rant about this earlier this week, but hopefully I can be slightly more eloquent here. I think there's a huge "Us and Them" thing between non-pirating anime fans and pirating anime fans. They are among us, we talk to them in societies, we talk on Twitter, you probably like their comments on those weird anime gif Facebook pages, and hell, we talk to them here. (Though I don't necessarily think the pirating anime fans I've seen are interested in the type of things UKA and AUKN do.) We need to stop talking about pirating anime fans like parents loudly complaining about the naughty stepchild destroying things downstairs that don't realise the child can hear every word they're saying. When has rudeness, sneering and being two-faced ever solved anything? Tweeting about how they aren't fans and they don't love anime as much as you do won't convince anyone, it will just make you look like a knob. This is especially the case when you know the people tweeting do in fact themselves pirate and things aren't as black and white as they would like to claim.

 

[Rui]

I will never get tired of the way we all talk about our frequent trips abroad. So classy.

When you list it all out like that, the huge gaps in Crunchyroll's UK catalogue (notable Toei overlap, of course) really are frustrating. Attack On Titan's licensee-requested 'vacation' from the site right at the peak of its popularity to force people to go for the home video release was also a bit scummy. Toei Europe's horrible anti-legal-streaming strategy is killing the anti-piracy crusade dead here, and I don't have to be polite about it like their actual industry partners.

I do feel that a lot of fans who only consume illegally simply don't care about the creators or the industry because it's foreign and therefore not worthy of consideration; they're doing everyone a favour by making things popular and the fact that they don't produce any actual revenue and actively suck ad revenue away from legitimate sites passes way over their heads. It's all rationalised in their minds and of course, what they do as an individual doesn't obviously affect anyone in any real way. I understand that attitude when the fans are young, as most of the louder pro-piracy crowd is, but it does confuse me when people who are in paid work (especially in media or other creative industries!) don't seem to understand the irony of expecting pay for work they do while refusing to pay others when the tables are turned.

There's no such thing as posting too much on a discussion forum, anyway

R

 

[Buzz201]

I will never get tired of the way we all talk about our frequent trips abroad. So classy.

I like to think of it as aspirational. If we keep talking about flying to the US, eventually we will. Positive thinking and whatnot.

When you list it all out like that, the huge gaps in Crunchyroll's UK catalogue (notable Toei overlap, of course) really are frustrating. Attack On Titan's licensee-requested 'vacation' from the site right at the peak of its popularity to force people to go for the home video release was also a bit scummy. Toei Europe's horrible anti-legal-streaming strategy is killing the anti-piracy crusade dead here, and I don't have to be polite about it like their actual industry partners.

I think this is perhaps what people don't realise. Crunchyroll could feasibly have 95+% of all anime series this year in the UK, but that means nothing if it doesn't get the ones people actually want. Having the obscurest of obscure titles every season and a mountain of short series that nobody will remember within even a week of their last episodes is great. It's absolutely fantastic, if you're a hardcore fan that's seen everything. But if you're a young upstart, you'd probably rather it sacked all of those off in favour of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Typing that out I was struck by a sudden thought -- What if Crunchyroll is actually anime's BFI Player, rather than it's Netflix? -- maybe we're recommending an otaku service, that happens to also have some mid and casual level content, to people who aren't really otaku.

Looking at the shows Crunchyroll has announced for this upcoming season, the only ones thus far of any note to non-mega hardcore otaku are probably the Fate/Grand Order special and Koro-sensei Q!. People don't plan their catalogue watching in advance for the most part, so really you're asking non-hardcore otaku to pay their $8 upfront for access to one confirmed title, and maybe a few later if they're in the mood or something sets social media on fire mid-season. Framing it like that, I don't necessarily know that I'd pay it either.

I do feel that a lot of fans who only consume illegally simply don't care about the creators or the industry because it's foreign and therefore not worthy of consideration; they're doing everyone a favour by making things popular and the fact that they don't produce any actual revenue and actively suck ad revenue away from legitimate sites passes way over their heads. It's all rationalised in their minds and of course, what they do as an individual doesn't obviously affect anyone in any real way. I understand that attitude when the fans are young, as most of the louder pro-piracy crowd is, but it does confuse me when people who are in paid work (especially in media or other creative industries!) don't seem to understand the irony of expecting pay for work they do while refusing to pay others when the tables are turned.

There's no such thing as posting too much on a discussion forum, anyway

R

The conversations I was referring to in my previous post were with a couple of students of Chinese descent, so I don't necessarily know that all of the young pirating anime-fans would subscribe to the ideas of cultural imperialism, verging on flat-out racism, that you're suggesting. (For example, one talked about trying to improve their Chinese reading skills as Chinese translations of manga often appeared faster than English translations.) Though I appreciate many others probably do subscribe to those viewpoints without even really thinking about it. Clearly it's rather misguided, as the foreignness of it all is probably part of the appeal for most of them.