The Twitterverse was buzzing today over the news that MX Media, the team behind a lot of the translations that appear on the Crunchyroll simulcasts, was going to stop including Japanese honorifics from their English translations. The announcement caused rage with some fans, and a number even threatened to quit Crunchyroll because of it.

Was this announcement really all that Earth shattering?  Just how important is it to include honorifics in subtitles?

While we simply use “Mr.” or “Mrs.” in English as a sign of respect in very particular situations, the Japanese utilize honorifics almost every time a name is uttered. The suffix you use to address another person often depends on your familiarness with the individual and / or their relation to you in the “pecking order” of society.

Ever since Mr. Miyagi called his pupil Daniel-san in that 1984 Rocky Jr. film, mainstream America has had just a small understanding of the Japanese honorific, if only for the novelty of it all. But anime fans have had much more exposure to the concept through their viewing. After many examples of what characters are called -san, -chan, -kun, or -sensei, they often pick up a very good understanding what situation calls for what suffix.

So after the American fans have learned this fundamental concept of a completely foreign language, they feel more educated and more cultured in the ways of the Japanese. And by MX Media now saying that they’re not going to bother explicitly writing it in their translations, the fans feel like they’re missing out on the authentic experience of watching anime.

But when it comes down to it, how important are the damn honorifics to anime anyway?

Well, I actually consider it to be very important.

Along with establishing the type of relationship between two characters, I think the honorific also becomes a part of their personality. Attaching the -chan honorific to a character automatically gives them a cute childish impression on the viewer. Harumi-chan of the Phoenix Wright video game series (renamed “Pearl” in the English version) will always be a -chan in my mind because she inhibits all the characteristics that having the suffix would imply.

So I think that understanding the honorific is critical in a story set in Japan, because it is a very critical part of the culture. When I downloaded the dub-only version of Moon Phase from iTunes a few years ago, it drove me completely nuts not knowing what Hazuki was calling her “big brother” Kohei in the original script. Was he an oni-chan, or what he an oni-sama? Saying one over the other would change her character significantly in my mind.

This actually comes up quite often for me while watching dubbed anime. Because I have familiarized myself with the culture so much, I feel that there’s a critical piece of information missing in the translation when you don’t include the honorifics. So I rewind back a few seconds in the video, switch to the Japanese audio track on the DVD, then listen to the line again in Japanese, paying attention for honorifics and speech patterns.

And that right there is my point. I listened to the audio to figure out what the honorific was. That’s the beauty of these basic Japanese words, they say them out loud right there in the dialogue. If the subtitle says, “Kyo-kun,” it’s most likely because someone said “Kyo-kun” out loud in the audio.

Open your ears, peeps. Even if the honorifics are not explicitly written in the subtitles, they’re still there. You don’t even need to know Japanese to figure then out. Just passively listen for the name of the character to be mentioned, then pay attention to the word mentioned after the name. That’s it! That’s the honorific.

What’s the point of watching an anime subtitled if you’re not even going to listen to the audio?

So the notion of MX Media having to keep in honorifics is silly. After all, they’re translating into English, and we don’t use honorifics in English! It’s silly to have them there in the first place. Mr. Miyagi is looked at as being silly for using the suffix, and that’s why “Daniel-san” has become just as much as a catchphrase from the film as the ridiculous “wax on, wax off” is.

Yes, the honorifics are important, but only for those of us who have taken the time to learn their meanings and significance. There’s no need for the rage. If you believe that those fundamentals are really that critical for your anime viewing, then just listen to the audio.

Screen cap provided thanks to Shiroi Hane.

So after a huge mix-up  regarding my coverage of the NYICFF this year, I was finally able to catch a screening of the highly anticipated new film from Mamoru Hosoda, Summer Wars, last weekend. Well, pretty much everyone and  their mother has seen the film and have written a review of it, and for the most part, the film has been unanimously praised by everyone.

However, I wasn’t quite as wooed over by the film as everyone else was, and when I tweeted this out, I got some peeps asking me to do a review on it. Well, I wasn’t really planning on doing this, so here’s my brief review of Summer Wars using as little spoilers as possible.

Summer Wars is a good movie, it might even be a great movie. But is it as amazing as the hype makes it out to be?

Far from it.

But first, let me just say that there is a lot to really like about this film.

I felt that it was the perfect snapshot of modern society, and by “modern,” I literally mean right now, as in March of 2010. Whether is was paid product placement or not, you felt a real sense of authenticity in the setting because all of the characters were using actual products we use today, such as the iPhone and the Nintendo DSi. Not some generic electronics or obvious brand parodies, they were actually the iPhone and DSi.

I believe the message Hosoda was conveying in doing this was that even though this anime film is a pure sci-fi action flick, we are actually living in a world that is filled with this amazing technology. The characters are constantly whipping out their cell phones to check their messages and log into the virtual community, which shows this incredible connection everyone had to each other over this  kind of network. And sure enough, as soon as the movie ended and the house lights went on, I looked around the theater to see almost everyone around me checking their cell phones. This film was a true reflection of the world we’re living in right now.

I also really liked the way Hosoda paused the movie several times for moments of awkward silences. In a medium where a new action is happening every few seconds, Summer War essentially stops dead in its tracks and waits an excruciating number of beat before anyone moves or says anything. This is such an unconventional move in anime, and I don’t think I’ve seen it pulled off since the latter episodes of Evangelion. So much respect to the man for trying out a stunt like that.

But ultimately, my problem with the film is that the main plot felt very uneven. There is essentially two faces to Summer Wars, the real world involving a huge family gathering and the virtual world being overtaking by a hacker. The problem is that 99% of the film takes place in the real world and focuses on the family and their relationships, but all of the major conflicts in the plot arise from the hacker story.

Because we spend so little time dealing with the virtual world, it becomes more of an after thought that never really gets fleshed out or becomes a huge consern for the audience. But then a very tragic event within the family in the real world is blame on the problems in the virtual world, and suddenly all attention and focus is switched to this side story that has just been stewing idly in the background this whole time.

This all leads to the climax of the film where suddenly every character jumps in with a brand new role to fulfill that hardly matches the part they’ve played up to that point. And one of the biggest heroes of this epic cyber battle ends up being a character that has had the smallest interactions to the online world up until that point.

Again, trying not to give away any spoilers here, but I just felt the final act of the film did not match the story leading up to it. It felt really rushed and sloppy, and that most certainly took away the momentum that had been building up in this story about a family reunion.

After the screening, I was asked which recent anime film did I like better, Oblivion Island or Summer Wars. The difference is that I went into Oblivion Island expecting it to be bad, and its climax absolutely blew me away. I went into Summer Wars expecting it to blow me away, and I walked out with an, “well, that was nice,” impression.

Summer Wars is a step up from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which was also a really good film. However, Hosoda still has a bit to go before he can be rank among Miyazaki, Kon, or even Shinkai when it comes to great anime directors.

* * *

I also read the first volume of Bunny Drop over the weekend, and this time, I can agree with the critics. I loved this comic, it’s fantastic.

I can’t help but to compare it to the shojo comic Aishiteruze Baby, where a teenage boy is left in charge of his little female cousin and ends up becoming a surrogate father to her. Even though the comic was shojo, it ended up being the work where I based my “longing for fatherhood” definition of moé off of.

Bunny Drop is a very similar premise, however, the difference this time is that this bachelor is a working professional 30-year-old. So rather than having the novelty of a teenage boy raising a little girl, it’s actually a man who is of proper age for fatherhood. This leads to a far more serious and realistic take on parenting, but its still just as sweet and adorable.

As I was reading the manga, I thought to myself, “so, is this seinen or josei?” and I even came close to tweeting out the question online. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that this had to have been a josei comic.

And that’s just a damn shame considering that I, a professionally working 20-something bachelor, was feeling such a strong connection to this protagonist. If I was a Japanese manga reader, would I have even been able to read this or would it be too embarrassing to pick up a woman’s magazine?

And again, I think that if you’re looking for a source on the moé phenomena, this is it. The “longing for fatherhood” goes against so many traditional gender roles, and comics touting the notion of men taking on maternal duties can only exists in comics for women. So we had to adapt the concept to be able to put this kind of stuff in our own magazines, and thus, we have moé.

* * *

I also caught the Irish animated movie The Secret of Kells over the weekend.

… yeah, I guess I was pretty busy over the past few days, wasn’t I? (>_<)

If you’re unfamiliar with Kells, it was the only nominee for this year’s Best Animated Film oscar that you have never heard of before. It has been touted for its unique visual style, and indeed, that alone is worth the price of admission.

Is it an anime style? Not at all. In fact, it’s about as western as a cartoon can get.

I had described it as a mashup of Kim Possible character designs with the creativeness of The Thief and the Cobbler. The latter title is probably a little too obscure for me to use for comparison, so I highly recommend checking out Wikipedia for full info on that film. But the influence is very obvious, and I was very happy to hear director Tomm Moore confirm this connection in his interview with Samurai Beat Radio last week.

Story wise, it’s a children’s film, so don’t expect anything that deep or complex. But I think the pretty visuals more than makes up for that to the eye of an adult viewer.

Man, the loli wars just keep on coming. Maybe I need to rename this column “Today in Lolicon” from now on. That’s pretty much all the news that’s worth talking about this week.

Today’s big news is over a proposed bill in Tokyo to ban “virtual” child pornography. The new law would ban the sexual or sexually provocative drawings of children who appear to be under the age of 18 regardless of actual age described in the story. The bill will be voted in committee on the 19th, then it would move up to assembly on the 30th. If it passes assembly, the law will go into effect this October.

This would normally be the point in the post when I would joke about “saving the virtual children” and maybe even providing a quote from a fictional loli girl in order to mock the ridiculousness of this law, but GodLen has already done that. So I’ll just take this one seriously this time.

Now, let me remind you, Japan already has some pretty whacked decency laws in place. For example, you are not allowed to sell anything in the country that shows male or female genitals. That kinda sounds reasonable expect for the fact that it also includes legitimate adult pornography.

That’s right, you can’t show naughty bits in Japanese pornography, it’s illegal. Considering how perverted we often perceive the Japanese to be, it’s remarkable to think that they have stricter porno laws over there than they do in America.

And yet even with that ridiculous law in place, they still sell pornography, fully censored and all. So if this new law passes, it won’t be that unusual to have such a restriction in place. Manga artists will somehow find a way around it.

So is it possible that this bill will pass in Japan?  Well, that’s a little difficult for me to predict. We already have a similar version of this law in America that – while purposely vague and open-ended – has resulted in jail time for both men brought to court for it.

But Japan, in general, has a far different view on child abuse than we do in America. Sex crime is not nearly as frequent over there as it is over here, but their ideal age for considering girls sexual appropriate skews far lower into the teens than that “18 and over” limit we’ve established in the US. So I think that raising that age of appropriateness is going to be a much harder obstacle for the law to overcome in Japan. That’s a significant cultural change.

But another thing we have to remember is the reason WHY such a ridiculous law exists in America in the first place. As much as manga fans understand the need for such material and can easily tell the difference between fantasy and reality, we make up such a small minority. The general public will easily support a ban on fake child porn because they see no need for it, so we’re all fighting a losing battle here.

Is the general Japanese public just as disgusted over lolicon as we are over here? Well, we’ll find out when it goes to vote on the 19th.

* * *

Next in loli-news, after days of remaining silent on the issue, FUNi released an official statement to ANN today regarding the whole mess around the edits to Dance in the Vampire Bund. They said that as for now, they might be able to release the series uncut on DVD, but since the show hasn’t finished airing yet, they can’t be too sure. If the series does end up containing material that could get them in trouble legally, then yeah, they will have to censor it.

Now, I wrote my take of the situation last Monday, so I’m not going to repeat myself here. But now my question is how well did FUNi handle this situation?

FUNi has been dead silent on the issue since Friday, and that was pretty unusual. I guess that their plan was to remain low and let the controversy blow over all by itself. But the fans proved to be resilient and refused to back down, and with the company making a public appearance at MegaCon this weekend, it was obvious that they would have to settle this situation sooner than later.

So they issued this official statement today and it seemed to satisfy a lot of the fan rage, but really, what did this statement say? It was just as filled with PR fluff as their last official statement, just more vague and non-committal. They MIGHT not have to censor the DVD release? Yeah, sure, they might. They might have to do a lot of things for that DVD release, it’s going to take at least a year for them to release it.

The anime DVD market has been changing so rapidly these days that one year from now is going to be completely unpredictable. There’s no telling what the law will be at that point, or if the market will be stable enough to even allow this series to be released on DVD. After all, FUNi licensed My Bride is a Mermaid over a year ago, and there is still no sign of a release date anywhere in the near future.

So quit getting your panties in so much of a bunch, peeps, because this one’s gonna take a while. Let’s cross these bridges when the time calls for it.

* * *

And finally, I just want to close out today’s edition of “Today in Lolicon” by saying that I have really been getting into Dance in the Vampire Bund lately. I’m still on the fence about the anime adaptation after watching the first four episodes, but I picked up the first volume of the manga last weekend and I am hooked! I just ordered more volumes of the manga today.

The weird thing is that I’m not even a big fan of horror or monster shows, but Vampire Bund is not that type of series at all. It’s more about power and government than hacking and slashing, and it really only uses the supernatural elements of vampires and werewolves to establish a class system and unrest within a large society. It’s a political drama wrapped in a gothic-lolita package.

Though I can’t help but to form a connection with Vampire Bund to Tsukuyomi: Moon Phase. They both feature childish female vampires with teenage male partners. They both take the ideas of “vampires” into a genre that is not necessarily horror. And finally, they were both adapted in anime series by Studio Shaft and director Akiyuki Shinbo.

So the big bombshell that was dropped last Friday when FUNimation began its simulcast of Dance in the Vampire Bund was that the American distributor would be censoring scenes in both the online streaming version and DVD release. Although they would not specify what was being cut out, the scenes were obviously centered around the story’s main character, a female vampire in the body of a little child, and her knack for walking around topless with only a black thong on.

[...] after viewing the unedited as well as the Japanese broadcast edit of the series “Dance in the Vampire Bund,” we have determined the series contains controversial elements which, when taken out of context, could be objectionable to some audiences.

With this in mind and with approval of the licensor, we will edit select scenes from the series in streaming and home entertainment release. These are scenes which are inappropriate for U.S. viewing and are not essential to the storyline.

And the whole internet went ape over this.

“How dare they censor our anime!”

“What’s the big deal? The manga was far worse!”

“What about artistic expression?”

“What about freedom of speech?”

“I’m going to boycott this release and any other series FUNimation releases from now on!”

“At first they went for the lolicon, and I said nothing…”

Well, now let me say something.

I have been quite vocal on this blog through out the years against the idea of censorship. In fact, the second post I ever wrote for the Anime Almanac was a long rant in 2005 against VIZ Media for censoring one panel in the comic series I’’s. On top of this, I have been a strong advocate against the criminalization of lolicon images in America, since I feel that no work of fiction should be made illegal no matter how vile or disgusting it might be.

But despite this type of background and years of advocating against such things, when this huge news came to light last Friday, I immediately understood why FUNimation had started doing this kind of censorship on their products.

And in fact, I completely support them in doing it.

So why is that? Why do I feel that FUNi censoring images in 2010 is justified while VIZ censoring manga in 2005 was complete bullshit? Am I just being biased towards the one company and not the other?

No, it’s because of the Handley case, people. The Handley case changed everything.

You may want to argue that lolicon is not technically illegal yet, and yes, you would be technically right. But the fact of that matter is that the two times the issue has been brought to American court, it’s ended with both dudes being sent to jail. As much as the manga community lashed out against these trials, these defendants were met with very little support from the general American public.

So they never really stood a chance of winning the case, and these landmark rulings have set a precedence that will not be ignored the next time the issue is brought to court. This means that we are more than likely to see more people sent to jail in the future because of what has just happened recently.

While the legality of lolicon images in America has always been considered a “gray area” for as long as I can remember, the moment that a man in Iowa got sentenced to prison because of it, that gray suddenly became black. Very black.

So with that in mind, do you want to be the one responsible for sending the next sap like Handley to jail? This is a very serious issue. And if you’re in the position of FUNimation, just think about the kind of damages a legal battle over child pornography could cost your company if you were accused of selling it.

Let me remind you that unlike other anime distributors, FUNimation is owned by Navarre, a publicly traded corporation. That means that many people out there – maybe even you, dear reader – own stock in that company. So FUNi is at the mercy of not only their parent company, but their many stockholders as well. Those stockholders can make or break them.

And if FUNi ends up in the middle of a court battle in which they are accused of selling child pornography, do you think the stockholders are going to stick around and admire them for “artistic expression” and “freedom of speech?”

Hell no! Their stock will plummet as no one is going to want anything to do with the folks producing kiddy porn! And just like that, you take down the largest anime company left in the US market.

Now this is the worst-case scenario that could possibly emerge from selling Vampire Bund. And don’t get me wrong, this act of censorship is a total “cover your ass” move they’re doing out of fear of a vague and uncertain legal statue right now.  But it’s a risk that became far more realistic as the situation in Iowa became far more unfavorable on the issue of fictional pornography.

And frankly, I’m surprised it took FUNi this long to start censoring.

I could not believe that they licensed Strike Witches last year while Handley was still pending trial. The first thing I asked them the moment they made the announcement was if they could even legally release that in America? The FUNimation Twitter rep response in a matter-of-fact way, “Umm… yes? Why wouldn’t we be able to release it?”

But they found out quickly why this might have been an issue when they began streaming the series uncensored last October. After supposed “complaints” filed over the show’s content, the company pulled the graphic videos from the net and began streaming an edited version of the series. However, they said that they also would continue to sell uncensored version that same week on their “Download to Own” service and on DVD whenever that came out.

Even though Handley had pleaded guilty back in June of last year, the full details of the case were not released until his sentencing on February 11th, just two days before FUNi debuted the final dub of Strike Witches at Katsucon. The court records revealed that Handley was an average otaku with no criminal record, and his only crimes were the possession of this questionable content.

The kind of questionable content that the company was promoting quite heavily at the convention that weekend. Clearly this was going to be the last time they’d pull off something like this again.

So this brings up the question that was just recently brought up by Chris Beveridge, just why would FUNi bother licensing this series in the first place if they knew that couldn’t get away with it uncensored?

It’s the same reason why the Rosario + Vampire manga ends up on the NYT Bestsellers list with each new volume. It has the word “Vampire” in the title and as we all know, vampires are popular right now. And as Rosario has shown us, any vampire title will sell right now even if the target audience isn’t the Twilight crowd. It’s money, guaranteed money.

Case in point, industry insider Ed Chavez has said numerous times that the Vampire Bund manga has already sold very well for Seven Seas publishing. This is a hot property, and you can’t blame the folks at FUNi for wanting a piece of this action.

And all they have to do is cut out a few seconds to ensure that their ass is covered legally.

At Katsucon, FUNi’s events manager Adam Sheehan ran a workshop in anime marketing where he’d throw out problems that will arise within the industry and then he’d ask us for the best way to handle the situation. One of the scenarios involved a massive fan outrage on the internet over the choices the company was making for the American release of a title. What would we do? Go forward with the release or make the changes the fans were demanding?

My response to that scenario was to go forward with the release and not allow the internet response to sway the process in any way. Always do what was best for the product and the company, because the internet will ALWAYS be bitching no matter what you do, so they are an unreliable counsel to turn to. Trying to always give in to their demands will never pay off with increased sales.

This whole controversy is going to blow over in a few days and this is not going to make a huge difference in the long run. Those who were going to buy the DVD uncensored are still going to buy the DVD censored, and those that don’t buy the DVD were never going to in the first place. Just like how I bought the entire I’’s collection from VIZ Media despite my rant against them in 2005.

Censoring Vampire Bund is the right choice for FUNimation from a purely logical business perspective, and we, as fans, have to respect the folks that want to keep their jobs. Being forced to censor this kind of material sucks, it really sucks, but that is the situation in America right now.

When that man in Virginia got 20 years for a stash that included lolicon in 2005, it set a precedence that we all ignored and forgot about. When Handley got six months in the clink just a few weeks ago for nothing but lolicon, it reiterated that the problem was there, and it there was nothing we could do to fight it.

We’re in the post-Handley era now, peeps. Get used to it.

DearS is a comic in which an alien race of big breasted women (and some pretty boys as well) crash into Earth. Along with highly exposing space costumes, the women wear dog collars around there neck. The collar is symbolic of the fact that their only purpose in their alien life is to find a “master” of the opposite sex and faithful serve under them as a “slave.”

Strawberry 100% is a grade school soap opera where a girl accidentally flashes her strawberry patterned panties at teenage boy when she trips over him. She runs away completely embarrassed,  so the boy never gets her name or a good look at her face. But he becomes completely enthralled with the bizarre episode, so he goes on a quest to find the girl with the strawberry panties.

Chu-Bra is the story of a 7th grade girl who is obsessed with women’s lingerie and forms an “Underwear Appreciation Club” with a group of her classmates. Because of this premise, the comic is constantly showcasing its female characters in their underwear, and often in very sexual position as well.

And finally, Kodomo no Jikan is the story of an elementary grade school girl who shamelessly flaunts her sexuality to her male teacher in order to tease him and get him in trouble. Because of it’s portrayal of a little girl in such a way, it has arguably become the most controversial manga title in the past decade, and was even banned in America by Seven Seas publishing.

What do all of these comics have in common?

They were all done by female manga artists.

That’s right, the most offensive, perverted, fanservice-laden, otaku-pandering, female-degrading manga of the past few years have been penned by female manga artists themselves.

How about that, ladies?

Personally, I think this makes total sense. I am always looking for a decent sexy comic out there that won’t insult my intelligence, but unfortunately, most of them end up being nothing but crappy excuses to show naked girls. But for some reason, the series with this particular feminine touch always manage to stand out as a worthwhile read.

When you have a woman writing the story, you tend to get a much deeper and more dramatic plot holding together all of these heaping doses of fan service, which makes the series totally more enjoyable then just having the eye candy alone. I think this is the reason why these particular series have become so popular among their male readers, and have all gone on to be adapted into anime series as well.

On top of that, I find that these series also feature some of the most attractive character designs and outfits of any other ecchi series. The artist puts a lot of detail in highlighting more that just the T&A when she’s trying to make her characters sexy, and it’s in these little nuances that make her art stand out above her male counterparts.

I guess that no one understands the appeal of the female body quite like a female does.

* * *

I’ve got to give Crunchyroll major kudos on their iPhone app (iTunes link). When they debuted the portable video streaming program last month, it was good, but there were still some critical bugs that made it fail to compared to the web gateway. But then they pushed out a version 1.02 update last night, and oh man, this is now one sweet app!

I think the biggest improvement in this new update is access to premium video if you’re a Crunchyroll subscriber. This usually includes brand new anime episodes with in their first week after Japanese broadcast (they go free after one week), though the entire Fairy Tale series is also under this pay wall. So when 1:00 EST rolls around on Sunday and you’re not on your desktop, whip out that iPhone and enjoy that brand new episode of Hanamaru Kindergarten.

If you’re not a paid subscriber, you still greatly benefit from the update as they have completely cleaned up the navigation system in browsing the massive collection of streaming videos. In a stroke of brilliance, they even categorized each series based on their broadcast season or genre.

So where can the CR app go from here for their next update?

• Fix the subtitles issue! – Having to always manually turn on the subs when starting an episode is annoying, and is potentially be a deal breaker for newcomers to the app. If QuickTime won’t allow you to default with the subtitles turned on, then hard code them into the video itself.
• Allow for streaming over 3G – Yeah, the picture would probably be crappy over the cell phone network, but the iPhone can handle that kind of streaming.
• Add a “favorites” option for series - Sure, the revamped navigation is much, much better than the previous one, but if I’m just following a couple of simulcasts, let me checked those off and give that it’s own menu.
• Optimize for the iPad – Dude, as sweet as this app is for the iPhone, it’s going to be even better on the huge screen of the iPad. Get those 720p feeds ready for the launch of the new platform and retool the UI so that we won’t have to run it in 2x mode.

But still, I think having an app like this makes the subscription well worth it.

* * *

And finally, if you recall from my Katsucon report a few weeks ago, I wrote that we otaku “were totally out of place, and I’m sure the poor bastards sharing the con center with us that weekend felt the same way as well.”

Well, here’s the story of one of those “poor bastards” from the conservative Christian Family Life Conference that was taking place alongside Katsucon that weekend. It’s a really fascinating read.

I’ve always wanted to write a feature on these type of people who just so happen to stumble across an anime convention like this. For the most part, we manage to completely take over the entire venue and the surrounding neighborhood whenever a convention comes to town. And we often have to share this space with other people, so you have to wonder what they’re thinking when they’re suddenly inside of a world full of rambunctious teenagers in huge elaborate cosplay.

So as I wrote in my post last Friday, the internet has been going nuts for the past few day over the alleged plagiarism of Nick Simmons, son of rock band KISS’s Gene Simmons, over some panels he apparently lifted from the manga Bleach. Deb Aoki of About.com Manga provides a lengthy recap of all the debates going on surrounding the act and just how bad it is compered to the digital piracy of manga online.

You’re not going to find me quoted anywhere in that recap. I didn’t participate in any of the online discussions or debates for one reason:

I don’t think that this act of “plagiarism” is really that big of a problem.

Isn’t manga an industry filled with copycats already? Why are we suddenly singling out Simmons here for imitating art he saw in a comic he obviously enjoys?

Manga artists are constantly ripping off each others styles and ideas, and that’s just a normal part of the business. Look at the massive dojinshi subculture built around amateur artist selling knock-off versions of their favorite comic series. Originality is something that you rarely see in this medium.

Sure, Simmons was probably cutting it a little too close with copying over so much of the panel like that, but I felt that he made more than enough changes to make it “his own.” That’s why I completely stand by Simmons as he made his public statement today calling his work an homage to Bleach. That is exactly what it is, an homage.

And let’s not forget that Bleach artist Tite Kubo seemed to be completely dismissive of the issue as he tweets (translation by Ms. Aoki), “I’m more interested in the fact that Gene Simmons’ son is a manga-ka than whether he’s plagiarizing me or not.”

After all, what’s really the big deal? Copying is just the manga way of doing it.

* * *

Chu-Bra episode 8 is now streaming free for everyone in America, and maybe in other countries as well. Click on the link and find out for yourself.

There’s really nothing that deep or meaningful about this episode. They go to the beach and everyone wears swimsuits. Every anime has to have an episode like this, it’s required by law. In fact, Hanamaru Kindergarten had their “let’s get them all in swimsuits” episode last week as well.

… and again the week before that.

* * *

And speaking of Hanamaru Kindergarten, Zac and Bamboo talked about the series on last week’s ANNcast. They didn’t like it, but they say that they could also understand why it would appeal to that “kind of guy” into these type of anime shows.

That “kind of guy” is also known as Scott around these parts. ;-)

They theorized that the show wasn’t appealing to them because they just didn’t really care about children. Zac, a well documented bunny lover, says he could find the appeal of cute animal anime, a la Chi’s Sweet Home, but he just doesn’t care about the children.

Hanamaru is my favorite show of the season, but I’m actually not a big fan of the antics among the children either. Yeah, I guess it’s kind of cute and it leads to many laugh-out-loud moments, but overall, I think it gets a little boring after a while. I generally don’t enjoy the episodes that center around the kids.

The reason why I love the series so much is the same reason why I loved Love Hina, the nerdy protagonist. I wrote about this kind of “Everynerd” appeal before, and the same thing absolutely applies to Hanamaru’s male kindergarten teacher, Tsuchida.

Tsuchida is the nicest dork you could ever imagine and serves as a good role model for the male otaku audience. He works hard at his stable job and he takes a lot pride in what he does, no matter how unusual it may be. And I think he earns even more geek cred by the way he brings his Nintendo DS to work and talks about JRPG’s with the boys in his class.

But on top of that, I’m also just infatuated with his relationship to his female co-worker, Yamamoto-sensei. She is the ultimate moé girl – kind, naive, cute, and sexy where it counts. I love this character, so I want my otaku role model to overcome his awkwardness and actually get with her. I’m hanging on every episode waiting for this coupling to happen, and that’s why I can’t enough enough of series. It’s the adult characters, not the children.

Zac mentioned in the ANNcast that he couldn’t fathom seeing this kind of series when he got into anime a decade ago, and he’s right. We didn’t have moé shows back then. We only had bits and pieces of shows, like maybe one or two particular female characters from any given action series. But still, we knew of this type of appeal even back than, we just never really talked about it openly.

That’s why we were ready for such a huge boom in the last five years as we finally started to come out from the underground. And even though this shift has given us a ton of really crappy moé shows, we occasionally get a gem like Hanamaru Kindergarten that reminds us why we love the genre so much.

At least, that’s how this “kind of guy” sees it.

Well, we got hit with another snowstorm in Jersey which has kept me indoor for the past two days, and I got hit with a major cold today that has kept me in bed during that time. So today’s post is going to be brief and hilarious.

The Twitterverse has been all abuzz the past day over the alleged plagiarism of Nick Simmons, son of rock band KISS’s Gene Simmons, over a panel he apparently lifted from the manga Bleach.

That’s a story I’ll save for another day, but for now, lets talk about something funny. In response to the accusations a Facebook page, someone posing as Simmons went on an ignorant rant denying he watched anime nor ever “read a Japanese comic book or ‘magma‘.”

Thus gave birth to the My Favorite Magma meme on Twitter last night. All of the best anime and manga titles… just a little bit off. This would probably be the titles your grandmother would say if someone asked her what anime shows you were into.

You can see the entire list with the #MyFavoriteMagma hashtag, but below are my personal favorite magma titles.

Enjoy the list and have a good weekend, peeps! I hope many of you are able to make it to the NYICFF tonight and tomorrow. (^_^)

My Favorite Magma:

• Fruits Biscuit
• The Girl Who Lost Track Of Time
• Loan Shark and Club
• Cosby Bebop
• Pita Bread
• Sega Genesis Evangelists
• Full Metal Don’t Panic!
• Initiate D
• Galaxy Express 90210
• Fushigi Yogi Bear
• Sole Heater
• Spock and Worf
• Deaf Goat
• Viewtiful John
• Read or Don’t
• Reservoir Dogs Chronicles
• Cheese Sweet Home
• DeerS
• Ramen 1/2
• PowerPoint Saga
• Hobits
• You You Hockey Show
• His and Her Circumcisions
• Mobile Zoot Suit Gundam
• K-NO!
• Prince of Dentists
• Hit at Mary Sketch
• D-N-Angle
• Strawberry Panic! At The Disco
• Saint See Ya!
  
• Yotsuba%
• Ghost with a Smell
• The Mechanic of Hairihi Suzymiya
• School Rambo
• Love Hannah
• Witch Hunter Batman
• Tango Tangy
• http:// sign
• Gifts of the North Pole

Jon over at JanaiBlog pointed me to this visual novel app for the Apple iPhone last night, My Neighbor Girl (iTunes link: full version and free trial version) . It’s such a simple and stupid game, but I ended up playing all night. Even though I’m still in the middle of playing the latest Ace Attorney game from Capcom, I opted to play the amateurish My Neighbor Girl instead.

I think what really drew me to the iPhone app was the fact that the Japanese programmers actually tried to translate it into English themselves. Not only did they put together a grammatically incorrect and awkward sounding script, but they actually had their Japanese voice actress attempt to read it out loud!

Now all things considered, the Japanese girl’s English is not all that bad. One might assume that she’s probably the top of her class when it comes to foreign language. But still, she sounds very uncomfortable as she struggles to pronounce the English words through her thick Japanese accent. And she gets no help from the script she’s reading from because, as you can see from the screen cap above, it becomes complete nonsense at moments.

At first I was appalled by all the Engrish and switched over to the Japanese audio and text, but then I decided to give it a second chance. And she eventually won me over. There was something kind of cute about the way she was struggling with her English. Kinda moé, in a way.

So if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, give this one a shot. See if its poor translation wins you over as well.

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Okay, so here was a little bit of news that slipped through the cracks during Katsucon weekend. Japanese video game publisher NIS is entering the American anime market when they announced the upcoming release of Toradora and other series.

Now everyone in this field – at least the pessimistic ones – have been asking themselves just what is NIS thinking in trying to enter the market at this point? The anime DVD market is dying, and it has been dying for years. It’s gotten to a point where there is only one big company left in the industry, and everyone else is just struggling to survive right now.

Well, NIS made an appearance on ANNcast last week, and as it turns out, the current dismal state of the market is the reason why they’re entering it. They’re seeing it as a market thinning out right now, so they can step right in and get all those hot titles while the gettin’s good!

I can appreciate their optimism, but man, how could they possibly succeed doing the exact same thing that is not working for other companies? Their plan is to just release sub-only DVDs, and they are not looking to expand beyond that market any time soon. They think that the niche products are just going to magically sell themselves when history has shown that they don’t anymore. The Japanese have had a really bad track record when it comes to entering the American anime market like this, and I don’t see how it’s going to be any different for NIS.

But at least they seem to have a great PR department in place and they have been very open and welcoming to the fan community since the announcement. That’s actually a lot better than most veteran anime companies in the industry these days, so hopefully that gives them a fighting chance.

Either way, I do look forward to checking out Toradora in the near future.

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Michael Pinto of Fanboy.com says that “anime isn’t about the complexity but the storytelling,” and I couldn’t agree with him more. Whenever anyone asks me to define what makes anime and manga so special, I tell them that it’s the combination of visual art, fantasy, and storytelling. I never really considered the medium all that deep or meaningful. It’s just a highly creative form of entertainment, and that’s what makes it so wonderful.

* * *

And finally, this picture makes me question, “What the hell is wrong with 21% of these people?!”

Now, I know that not everyone hated Ponyo as much as I did, and I can accept that. But ranking the movie above both Mononoke and Spirited Away, two of the best animated movies of all time?!

Nah-uh, that simply does not compute. You’re wrong. Those 21% of people are just wrong.

Unfortunately, the festival was severely lacking any anime last year, but they more than make up for it this year three highly anticipated debut films. I’ll hopefully have my reviews up for all three titles in the next two weeks, but for now, let’s check what the NYICFF has to offer in this year’s anime preview:

Summer Wars

NYICFF 2010 opens with the scintillating new feature from emerging anime star Mamoru Hosoda, a film whose “dazzling fluency of motion and untethered brilliance of invention makes the usual fantasy anime look childish and dull.” – The Japan Times. Kenji is a teenage math prodigy recruited by his secret crush Natsuki for the ultimate summer job – passing himself off as Natsuki’s boyfriend for four days during her grandmother’s 90th birthday celebration. But when Kenji solves a 2,056 digit math riddle sent to his cell phone, he unwittingly breaches the security barricade protecting Oz, a globe-spanning virtual world where millions of people and governments interact through their avatars, handling everything from online shopping and traffic control to national defense and nuclear launch codes. Now a malicious AI program called the Love Machine is hijacking Oz accounts, growing exponentially more powerful and sowing chaos and destruction in its wake. This “intriguingly intelligent” cyberpunk/sci-fi story is a visual tour-de-force, with the amazing world of Oz as the highlight. Like the Internet as conceived by pop artist Takashi Murakami, Oz is a hallucinatory pixel parade of cool avatar designs, kung fu jackrabbits, toothy bears, and a bursting rainbow of colors.

Summer Wars will be showing Friday, February 26 at 6:00 pm (Sold Out) and Saturday, March 13 at 11:00 am (still available). Mr. Hosoda will be in attendance for the Friday showing.

Mai Mai Miracle

This sumptuously animated film about friendship and the passing of childhood is as “splendidly colorful and beautifully illustrated as a Monet landscape” (Hollywood Reporter). Shinko spends her days running barefoot among the endless green wheat fields in her small country village, imagining she is playing 1,000 years ago when the area was the local capital and home to a beautiful young princess kept hidden from society. Shinko gets a new partner for her games when she befriends Kiiko, a shy transfer student from Tokyo whose nice clothes and modern luxuries immediately set her apart from the other kids. Together, the two girls spend their afternoons daydreaming, building dams, chasing animals, and living an otherwise simple and idyllic life – until looming adolescent responsibility and harsh grown-up truths begin to encroach on their make- believe world of princesses and castles, and it becomes increasingly difficult to disentangle fantasy from reality. Director Sunao Katabuchi worked with Hayao Miyazaki as assistant director on Kiki’s Delivery Service, and the influences show, from Mai Mai’s stunning animation and exalting focus on nature, to the film’s happy/sad nostalgia for the endless days of summer and the tender portrayal of a young girl at the transition between childhood and adult.

Mai Mai Miracle will be screening Saturday February 27 at 5:30 pm and Saturday March 6 at 11:30 am. Unfortunately, both shows are currently sold out.

Oblivion Island

The creators of Ghost in the Shell mix exquisitely detailed 2D backgrounds with modern 3D character designs in a dazzling animated adventure that plays like Alice’s fall through the rabbit hole into a world of topsy-turvy, anime dream-logic. When Haruka misplaces a hand-mirror that was a keepsake from her mother, she stumbles upon a portal to the subterranean world of Oblivion Island, a place where strange masked creatures gather up all the childhood trinkets humans abandon as they grow older, and attend Dream Theaters where they can watch and feel the memories locked in these forgotten objects. The land is ruled by an evil overlord, The Baron, who craves the power created by the memories locked in Haruka’s cherished hand-mirror – a power that will allow him to rise beyond his world of discards and take over the world of humans! Aided by Teo, a lowly junk collector, and Cotton, her old stuffed animal brought back to life, Haruka struggles to recapture the mirror from the Baron, and to rediscover the fleeting moments of childhood love and friendship that are among life’s most precious treasures.

Oblivion Island will be showing this Saturday, February 27 at 10:30 am (still available) and Saturday, March 6th at 4:30 pm (sold out).

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To purchase tickets to any of the showing still available, please visit this site. I look forward to seeing you all there! (^_^)

All photos and descriptions provided by the New York International Children’s Film Festival.

So you all remember my manifesto on the greatness of Chu-Bra a couple of weeks ago, right? Well, to sum it up, I thought the series was actually really well done because it combined the visual sexiness of lingerie with a very unique (and serious) take on the awkwardness of puberty. I feel that if you write the show off as being nothing more than lolicon fodder, then you’re doing the story a great disservice.

Well, Ed Sizmore of Comics Worth Reading still wasn’t quite convinced that there was more to this series than its sexy exterior, and he requested that I write up episodic reviews on what I was seeing when I watch this series. While I don’t plan to do this for every episode, I’m going to try to do it for all the really good ones from here on out.

So let’s focus on episode 7, since it is now streaming for free for anyone within the US. While the series has been focusing on puberty through the female point of view up until this point, this episode really centered around the male’s experience via its only boy character, Komachi-kun. As a male, I found myself able to easily identify with him as he struggles to keep his hormones in check while still trying to remain a “good boy.”

I thought this episode summed up the male middle school experience perfectly by centering around the all too familiar event we see pictured in the screen cap above:

Staring at the bra strap showing through the shirt of the girl sitting in front of you.

As the Chu-Bra girls go into the summer, they change into their lighter school uniforms, and with the lighter fabric comes the opportunity to catch a faint view of the bra straps underneath. Everyone notices this the first day, and as the boys gossip over this new development, Komachi does his best to not think about it.

But he can’t help it, none of us could at that age. And whenever he sees a bra strap through the uniform, he takes a longing notice to it. There was still this huge mystery at that time about the complex female undergarment and the unknown holy grail that was contained underneath those tiny belts and latches.

Watching this episode reminded me of how much I was enthralled with this idea during my adolescence, and how this strap has somehow become completely unattractive to me in my adulthood.

Perhaps the mystery is solved the first time we reached second base with a girl. Perhaps we simply desire something more than just the strap after a certain age. Or perhaps girls just learn how to hide their strap better as they get older.

But either way, this episode completely captured that awkward feeling we had with our hormones running wild in middle school, and that is why this series deserves more credit than it is currently receiving from the fan community.

* * *

I’m the last person in the world to report on this, but if you haven’t checked out the McG directed video of Kirsten Dunst in Akihabara, you really should. It’s pretty awesome.

The video was created for an art exhibit at the Tate Modern Museum in London called “Pop Life”, which focused on post-Andy Warhol artists who make art out of modern commercialism. The art exhibit had a gallery devoted to the highly overrated “superflat” artist Takashi Murakami, who makes a cameo in the video as the dude in the ball that gets “puffed” away by Dunst in the final shot.

McG is probably best known these days as the dude who directed Charlie Angels and the latest Terminator movie, but children of the 90’s – like myself – will remember him as the guy who made kick ass music videos for Sugar Ray, The Offspring, and Smash Mouth.

Ah, the McG 90’s. It was a simpler time, when girls danced around in booty shorts, white guys partied in suburban neighborhoods, and everything was over-saturated in bright colors.

Anyway, I’m really glad to see him go back to his music video roots with this look at the scene in Akiba.

* * *

FUNimation’s convention guy, Adam Sheehan, is no longer their convention guy. He’s been promoted in the company to Marketing Manager of FUNi’s upcoming social network, which used to be Shodojo.

Adam is one of the coolest guys working at that company, and I am so glad to see him take on a project I have such high hopes for. If you’re interesting in taking over his job as events manager, FUNi has already posted the job listing.

* * *

And finally, let’s talk a little about Bandai and manga. Last week, BEI announced that they were launching a website dedicated to their manga division. And why do they need to have a new website? Because BEI announced today that they expanding their manga division with new Code Geass anthologies.

Now first of all, Bandai sucks when it comes to websites, so I can’t believe that they’re taking on a brand new site when their current one is still a bit of a mess. And case in point, the new website is already borked if you’re using any common ad blocker.

And also, why is BEI suddenly focusing on their manga division now?

For years, manga has always been some kind of afterthought for them to tie in to their anime titles. It seemed like they pretty much gave up on the medium when they could barely put out a bare bones release of Lucky Star last summer. Even Amazon could not get their hands on an initial shipment until months after its street date.

And then Lucky Star ended up on the New York Times bestsellers list as soon as enough stores got that initial shipments.

And now Bandai thinks that they got a manga division?

That is a major change of heart based off of one hit series. I think that Bandai needs to tread carefully and realize that not every manga series will benefit from an anime tie-in like Lucky Star did. Code Geass anthologies? Really? Is the market really going to buy that?

If you’re gonna be a serious manga publisher, then pick quality manga titles, not crappy anime tie-ins.