Mama’s, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Otaku’s–Part 1

If you are a parent with kids interested in Japanese anime (cartoons) and manga (comic books), you need to be looking very closely at what your kids are into.

What is an otaku? Simply put, they are obsessive fans of pop culture, but I’m specifically writing about the ones involved in manga, anime, and video games. Of late, otaku has assumed negative connotations due to just how extreme the subculture has gotten. This is for very good reasons, which I will go into later. In the United States, the word mainly self-applied by fans of Japanese culture and hasn’t become such a negative term. Hopefully, it will become a negative term amongst parents given what I’ve run into online. There are far too many anime’s and manga’s that are pure sleaze masquerading as comedy or action.

I always wondered if the Japanese comic books and cartoons were really more intelligent and sophisticated than American efforts as their fans claimed.  The other point I’d read and heard since the 1990’s was how more accepted they were in the culture and were, in fact, respectable.  So as an ex-comic book collector and aficionado of things foreign, I decided to delve into the otaku world while going through two bouts of bronchitis earlier this year.

It wasn’t like I was a complete stranger to the genres involved, since I remember Robotech from the late 1980’s and Battle of the Planets from a little earlier.  Due to glowing reviews everywhere, I watched Spirited Away and became an instant fan of Studio Ghibli. Younger friends had introduced me to Bleach, a typical fighting anime that at least had interesting characters.  While I had Netflix, I sampled some anime series to get an idea what teens were into and did find some quality productions.  In fact, that led to an automated recommendation that became the first anime box set I purchased, Area 88.

So I don’t come into this with a hatred for anime or manga as a format. Well done comics and cartoons can be just as emotional or complex as a novel or theatrical movie.  In fact, I dare anyone to watch Grave of the Fireflies without shedding tears. But most of this, just like American comic books, is no longer for children. The main audience has become terminally arrested adolescents in their twenties to forties.

It is also a dwindling audience both here and in Japan.  With the Japanese birth rate well below replacement rate, there simply aren’t enough children being born to keep things afloat and industry sales have decreased.  Here in the states, the manga and anime boom peaked around 2005 and has imploded since then.  Unlike Japan, those who consumed anime and manga outgrew it in their later years.  So the great dream of mainstream acceptance went up in a puff of smoke.

There are consequences to shrinking markets in entertainment and one of the most interesting is what happens to a niche market.  Just like comic books in the U.S., it shrinks to specialty shops and a ever smaller and more hardcore clientele. At some point,  the whims of that small group begins to exert more and more control over the product put out.  While not nearly as bad off in Japan as it is here, other cultural factors have produced an even more disproportionate influence by the hardcore fans over manga and anime.

I should note that video games are very intertwined with manga and anime.  Many properties are adapted back and forth between all three media types.  The peculiar popularity of dating and pornographic romance simulators in Japan is something we don’t have here in the States.

Why am I bringing this up?  It has to do with many Japanese males dropping out of adult society, ones who have no real social lives, no wives, and no girlfriends.  They spend their days as NEET’s, playing video games, reading manga, watching anime, and avoiding growing up at all costs.  I’ve always liked the saying that “idle hands are the devil’s plaything” for good reason.  Too many men with nothing to do is never a good thing. Combine a culture that is far more permissive in regards to sexual mores with pornography centered around school girls and you may get an idea of what I’m talking about.

To be a little more clear, we are talking about arrested adolescents who fantasize constantly about teen and, appallingly, preteen girls.  With their disproportionate influence as very vocal consumers, the producers of anime and mange pander to this group constantly.  This is called “fan service.”  Jiggling breasts, sex jokes, nudity, and the ever popular camera shots of highly detailed panties are a staple of the medium. 

But that’s just the beginning of the problems. 

In the next post, I’ll go into how the themes of misogyny, incest, and pedophilia have become mainstream.  Thankfully, the Japanese government has finally moved to do something about this but it still applies to what has been put out.

Smallville Final Episode

Just finished watching the finale of Smallville and, as I suspected, it was fairly anticlimactic.  They setup so many things in the tenth and final season that it became a footrace to cram every loose end into the last two hours of the series. It figures that the same problems that plagued most of the season finales would be present in the final episode.

Far too much time was spent on the wedding in the first hour, which compounded the problem.  There was a heavy overdose of second thoughts, doubts, and generalized wimpiness from Lois and Clark dominating what was supposed to be the big debut of Superman. It also dragged out and didn’t get interesting until the battle that, of course, derailed the wedding at the last moment.   After that, the second hour was much better but things were crammed into that short span that would have benefited greatly from more time.

 

 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

The return of Lex Luthor felt as rushed as could be, but no surprise there as they weren’t sure the actor would be involved.  The death of Tess was no surprise, nor was alternate universe Lionel Luthor becoming the host for Darkseid in an ultimately disappointing appearance as the big bad guy. 

What surprised me was that we never got the iconic Superman pose or a clear full on shot of Tom Welling in the costume.  That is utterly baffling as fans have waited ten years for this.  Yes, he was seen in costume, but blurred, obscured, or CGI’d the entire time.  That and he wasn’t officially called Superman until the seven years later segment really annoyed me.

Smallville was never deep or consistent in quality, but it usually was entertaining.  It was too much to expect a really well done ending, I’m afraid.

Now for some more positive notes. 

Apokolips was very well rendered and the red skies were a nice tribute to Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

The omega symbols being revealed as part of the Anti-life Equation was a nice nod to the comics. 

Jonathon Kent handing the costume to Clark was very nicely done as the two fathers sent their son off to be a man.

Chloe and Ollie apparently having a son in the seven years later bookends was kind of sweet.  Better yet, Chloe didn’t die!

Lex having his memory erased by Tess as she was dying at least explains how he wouldn’t know Clark was Superman in the future.

Jimmy Olson MK II was the surprise cameo at the end in the seven years later bit.  So the little brother at Jimmy’s funeral did replace him in the mythos.

Still, it was a disappointing end to the series and felt more like a setup for something more.  It lacked the emotional impact that Superman’s first public appearance should have given us.  They simply fumbled the ball one yard from the end zone.

A Faux Expert Opines on China’s Stealth Fighter

One of the problems with the modern media is that there are many vaunted “experts” on any given subject who simply don’t know what they are talking about.  The Australian military aviation specialist Carlo Kopp is a prime example of this, which is why you should never quote him in a serious aviation forum – you’ll get laughed off the message board.  Yet here he is, getting the spotlight once again by proclaiming the Chinese J-20 is equal to the F-22A Raptor.

Worse yet, he claims his “analysis” of the prototype shows it is more stealthy than the F-35 Lightning II from certain angles.  This is the same guy who argued for upgrading ancient F-111 Aardvarks with the F-22’s engines!  Another one of his ideas is a F-22 fleet for Australia and he’s still championing that despite the simple fact the country can’t afford them.   Anything that threatens that dream is attacked, so Kopp has savaged the F-35 every chance he can.  Fortunately, the Australian government is more sane and want the JSF as it suits there needs quite well.

Now I’ll admit the J-20 will be a serious threat to our allies in the Pacific, but the F-35 will outclass it in stealth, avionics, and weapons.  That’s my armchair opinion based on the history of competing weapon systems over the years and Lockheed’s proven track record with stealth warplanes.  But don’t accept me as any kind of expert and do the research yourself.  You’ll probably come out more informed than Mr. Kopp.

Osama Bin Laden Really Is Dead Now

Courtesy of the U.S. Navy SEALs.

Good roundup of the events here.

I received an email from a friend about it just before going to bed last night and I was too tired to feel much about it.  At the moment, I feel satisfaction that we finally got the butcher after 18 years from his attacking the United States.  By that, I’m referring to the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.  It has been a very long time coming.

The fact he was living in luxury an hour away from the capitol of Pakistan was no surprise to me.  He always had close ties to their government through the ISI security service and I’ve long thought he was being sheltered there.  Also no surprise that we did this solo without Pakistani cooperation as they cannot be trusted.

What is surprising is how the White House is refusing to give the Pakistani government any kind of political cover on this. For all their vaunted efforts at reaching out to Muslim countries, they have shown themselves to be diplomatically tone deaf.  This operation most likely will make already difficult relations with Pakistan openly hostile in the future.

I expect the near future to see more calls from both the Left and Right to withdraw from Afghanistan now that Bin Laden is literally sleeping with the fishes. In an era of highly personalized attack politics, we just removed the figurehead for the enemy and so support for the war will evaporate quickly. The Left are anti-military and anti-Bush, while the rising specter of isolationism is firmly entrenched within the Right. 

Meanwhile, I can’t help but contrast how Saddam Hussein was dragged from a hole in the ground to Bin Laden being gunned down in a compound at a luxury resort area. The irony of the guy thought to be hiding out in caves going out that way while the dictator of many palaces was found wallowing in mud is profound.

Maybe now Trump and the Birthers Will Go Away

 

Obama’s long form birth certificate has finally been released and you can download it here.

One of the red herrings that has had conspiracy theorists going nuts has been the lack of a full birth certificate being released.  Foolish dreams of President Biden and a public spectacle of a resigning president have just gone up in smoke. This whole issue has been ridiculous to me from the beginning, since a local newspaper had his birth recorded at the time.

Hopefully, Donald Trump’s ego and celebrity driven candidacy can go up in smoke as well.  He’s no conservative and a constant failure at business, which is precisely what we don’t need.  The only thing he’s been good at is promoting himself and trading in wives for younger models as they get older. That’s cold reality there, much like Obama being a natural born citizen.

Why did the White House wait so long to release it?  Mainly to avoid other records being released as the President made it clear to the media his family was off limits to them.  The suspicion that his grades weren’t great is a valid one given his performance in office so far. But it is his wife’s dealings and family’s dealings in Chicago corruption that are the real issue, in my opinion.  It also has been a great distraction from dealing with the real issues with his presidency and split independents from the Republican party.

In the meantime, the “birther” movement has made themselves look like idiots and that has been to the benefit of President Obama for some time.  With the latest polls showing an increase in people believing he isn’t a citizen and Trump unofficially launching a candidacy, something had to be done to reign it back in. 

By the 2008 election, we entered an era where people can’t tell what the differences between truth, lies, and speculation are. Now demagogues from all facets of the political spectrum are running rampant and things are becoming nuts as a result.  Time to stop being so emotional people!  Coldly focus on what needs to be done or there will be no hope of fixing anything.

What a sad joke our country is becoming.

State of the Blog Statement

or a Redundant Post Title and Some Anime Recommendations

As I’m trying to improve my health and rearranging my priorities, I’ll be posting more reviews rather than politics.  There are many blogs on politics worth reading right now and I’m just static on an already crowded tuner.  So my writing here will be more for exercising my skills than attempting to change the world with my limited energy.  Looking at the long view, things are going to get pretty bleak for the world fairly soon and I have limits to how much complaining I can endure from myself.

So I’ll be reviewing all eleven episodes of the anime Fractale and eventually finishing the review of TRON: Legacy that I started in December. There is an off chance I might write some original fiction and put it up here, but nothing anytime soon.

While I’m not impressed by anime as a genre, I’ve done some exploring of it of late while being hammered by two bouts of bronchitis and have found some ones I deem of merit.  Fractale has already been mentioned.  Others of recent vintage are:

Shinryaku! Ika Musume aka Squid Girl – A humanoid girl with tentacles for hair decides to invade the surface in revenge for ocean pollution.  What follows is a very funny, silly and sweet comedy anime that is utterly charming.  Suitable for most ages; beware of squidding amounts of punning and the most annoying theme in history, degeso.  I can’t wait for season two.

 

The Japanese preview for Season 1

Kimi ni Todoke Seasons 1 & 2 – A letter perfect adaptation of the brilliant manga about the slow moving and heartfelt romance between an ostracized shy, scary looking girl and the most popular guy in her high school class.  While it sounds formulaic, the characters are fully realized and utterly believable which is a true rarity in anime. Sawako and Shouta are one of the best couples in any form of literature and the supporting cast are wonderful in their own right. There is no way I can heap enough superlatives upon Kimi ni Todoke.  The concentrated goodness in it is the perfect antidote for when the poisons of the world get you down. Suitable for 14 and up.

 

The opening theme for Yumekui Merry

Yumekui Merry aka Nightmare Merry – Magical girl falls on high school boy and adventures ensue.  I can’t stand this kind of thing and it has been done many times in the genre, but this series is different.  Discordant camera angles, surreal imagery, and a disturbing soundtrack make this a very stylish and attractive anime but it really shines with its likeable and stereotype defying characters. Merry herself is a marvelous character, a rare feminine tomboy instead of a tsundere (look it up).  She also is a lost and amnesiac dream demon trapped in the real world fighting her way to get back home.  The dream world segments are very reminiscent of Tim Burton films. Very talky and slow compared to most fighting animes. Suitable for older teens and up, not aimed at kids.

The Long Hard Road

It has been a hard winter, in regards to weather and health.  So it is my hope that spring finally arriving will herald better times for me, at least in being more productive.  I’ve had to shift priorities to seeing to my health and trying to put my house in order since last year. So far, results have not been good in either case.  Having to face the fact that my health will probably decline, not just stagnate as I get older has been a sobering realization.

One of my major flaws is that I always put others first and don’t care very much about my well being.  A person can get away with that as long as they have resources of health, wealth, and a network of friends and family to rely on.   Since I’m at a deficit compared to normal people on all those things, my reserves are totally shot with no easy or fast replenishment possible.  In the past few years I’ve had to give up a lot of volunteer work because I’m simply unable to do it anymore.  In fact, all my activities have taken large hits.  So my task now is having to learn to be more selfish in order to survive and be able to do anything at all for others.

Galling doesn’t even begin to represent how this makes me feel. It isn’t easy to go against one’s nature, especially when the only comfort in life is found when helping others.

But life isn’t about the way you want things to be, rather it is about dealing with the way things are.  Like having to go to the dentist’s office today for another unpleasant cleaning…

…at least it isn’t root canal.