The Anime Almanac

I must have been crazy when I decided to screen the show “Gravitation” to my anime club. It was a favorite among the few females in the club, and I thought a little boy’s-love might be good for the club. After all, we were exploring all different aspects of the medium and you’d be a fool to ignore the popularity of yaoi and other guy-on-guy material.

But in that one critical scene not too far into the show, the two lead male characters lean close to each other for a passionate kiss. It might have been a sweet and loving moment, but I couldn’t really tell. It was overshadowed by the loud, unanimous groan by all the male members of the club. To American males, the sight of two guys kissing each other is still a tough pill to swallow. Even if you are fully tolerant of homosexuality, we all grow up in a society that still looks down on it. This results in a slight homophobia that is very hard to shake off.

But I immediately came up with a solution that allowed me to comfortably watch this scene and every similar guy-on-guy moment there after:

“Just pretend it’s a girl!”

It’s really not that hard to do. These pretty boys, or “bishounen” as the ladies like say, are all essentially flat-chested female anime characters. They all sport long flowing hair, slender bodies, sparkling eyes, and other very feminine characteristics. In anime, many are even voiced by female voice actors. They are truly androgynous characters. I say it would take more effort to suspend your disbelief enough to consider them male instead of females.

And yet despite this gender ambiguity, all the girls simply go gah-gah over them.

But why is that? Why do females otaku find pleasure in one androgynous character finding love in another? To answer that question, let’s first take a quick look at the history of girls’ comics.

Notre Dame professor Deborah Shamoon writes a very interesting essay in Mechademia vol. 2 in which she looks at the history of androgynous characters in shoujo manga. She takes a look at early works of girls’ fictional prose and compares it to shoujo comics by using the androgynous (but still female) character Oscar from The Rose of Versailles as her primary example. While this particular comic is over thirty years old, her theory on androgyny in comics still applies to all the bishounen of today.

(On a side note, Mechademia is a fantastic publication that I will be talking about many more times in the future. I highly recommend it to anyone really interested in the cultural significance of the anime and manga.)

Ms. Shamoon believes the shoujo manga can trace its roots back to the girls’ fiction of pre-WWII Japan. During that time in history, girls didn’t really have male friends or boyfriends during their adolescence and teenage years. They had to save themselves for marriage, which would not happen until after graduation. So the only safe relation a girl could have was with other girls. These female friendships would become really close, so close that we would consider it completely lesbian by today’s standards. But that simply was not the case back then. With no male contact during those critical years of sexual development, this kind of relationship became a culturally accepted norm for young girls.

Cover of “Shoujo Illustrated Magazine” April, 1933. Source

Ms. Shamoon goes on to show that these homo-gendered relationships became the source of girls’ fictional stories. The cover of this magazines shows two girls depicted in a close friendship. Take note of the fact that the girls’ faces are very similar. This is probably because Japan was (and still is) a homogeneous society, and encourages unity in teenage years by making children wear identical school uniforms. Same sex, same look, same clothes… girls just eventually felt comfortable with everything being the same. And so “sameness” and familiarity became an ideal characteristic in a relationship among girls.

Ms. Shamoon claims that this pre-war desire for sameness is what’s ultimately resurrected with androgynous characters in modern manga. Oscar of Versailles is female, but she finds fame and power from her masculinity and androgynous appearance. Originally the artist had paired her with a young and very feminine girl, Rosalie Lamorlière. However, the audience ultimately rejected this pairing. It wasn’t because of the lesbian implication, it was because the manly Oscar was too different from the feminine girl. Even as same gender, their different physical appearances caused disapproval from the that young female audience.

The artist then paired Oscar up with a male, André Grandier. As the series progressed, André gradually became more and more feminine. He became so feminine that he even started to look like Oscar. These two characters, now neither male nor female, represented that desire for sameness which was still fresh in the Japanese female culture.

Needless to say, this pairing was a hit with the audience, and many would credit it as being the success of the series. But this pairing has an even deeper significance in the longterm scope of girls’ comics, and it sets the blueprint of all modern-day bishounen characters.

Next week I will take a closer look at bishounen of modern shoujo manga and why they are even a hit with American girls.

Scott finishes his series of posts from the first annual New York Anime Festival.

I am a connoisseur of entertainment, especially when it comes to television and anime. I watch it for hours every night after work, and I am easily the one to go to for all the latest on what’s on the air right now. But there is one interesting fact about my love of TV that seems shocks everyone when I mention it –

I don’t have cable, satellite, or any other service like that.

I simply don’t need it. My entertainment setup is an HDTV hooked up to a Mac Mini computer and up-converting DVD player. With my Verizon fiber-optic internet connection and a subscription to Netflix, I have access to so much programing that I’ll never be able to watch it all. I can easily download or stream the latest TV shows right onto that computer, or I can have Netflix mail me any DVD I want the next day.

That is just the world we’re living in today. The internet has made entertainment more convenient and easy to consume as ever. But the big question is now that we have all this wonderful technology, how does the entertainment industry adapt its business model?

The music industry has already tackled this issue with supporting legal download services. iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 service are highly successful, and now record labels are throwing more support by eliminating Digital Rights Management (DRM) restriction on these songs, allowing these legal downloads to be used freely even under modern copyright laws. The television industry is also adapting by offering their content online and streaming for free. Websites like Hulu.com and Adult Swim Videos show brand new episodes right after they are broadcast, sometimes even before they are broadcast! The content is supported by the occasional advertisement, but it’s well worth it for brand new TV shows anytime that you want to watch them.

That is the great financial potential that the internet can offer to the entertainment industry. It’s so powerful, in fact, that the Writer’s Guild of America is currently on strike to insure that they get properly compensated when everyone switches from broadcast to the net.

So the reason I bring up all this background is so that I can ask the following question:

Where the hell is the anime industry during all of this?

It should be pretty obvious that the internet and the US anime industry go hand-and-hand. In the year 2000, the anime show Love Hina became the first series to become a hit in America from being widely circulated on college file-sharing networks. By penetrating that key age 18-24 male demographic, it opened up interest in anime to become something more than just the Pokémon and Dragonballs of the time. Within years there was a booming market for anime DVDs and manga in America.

But as the DVD and manga market grew, so did anime file-sharing. Broadband connections become more affordable, so even normal households had the potential to download full video files. New technologies like Bittorent and Youtube made this task even faster and more efficient. Eventually, people got used to the idea of watching videos over the internet, and people like myself went that extra step to hooking up a computer into their home television system.

Anime was always unique when it came video files. It always had to be imported from Japan and translated into English. This extra step put it at a disadvantage over domestic TV shows. While companies did their best to get the product out as quickly as possible, the cost of production and labor was often too restrictive. Most anime either never makes it to America, or they do so years after they initially air in Japan.

That is where the internet becomes the most helpful. With an unlimited supply of anime fans with free time, shows can become collected, subtitled, and than redistributed within hours of its initial airing on television. This “fansubbing” process works very quickly, and continues to work even eight years after Love Hina.

You would think that with a successful and well established process in place, the American anime industry would try its best to adapt itself to get into that market. Right?

I’ve asked this question in the past whenever I go to anime conventions, and every year, the industry reps look at me like I’m some kind of idiot. Of course they can’t make a dime off of that fansub community. Those goddamn pirates are already a lost cause. The best solution was to snatch up every title and release them all on DVD to the people who will buy them. They really thought that this was where the future of the American anime industry lived. And with booming DVD sales, who was I to doubt them?

But that was not the right solution, and it started to become painfully obvious around the time of Anime Boston 2006. The DVD market was over-saturated. Companies were starting to lose their momentum, and many of them didn’t even show up. Only a few new titles were announced. It was pretty pathetic.

I wrote a very bitter entry on this sad state. I blamed the fansub community for not supporting the industry like they should have, but I also blamed the industry for not embracing the fansub community and changing their business model. Once again, all my questions of online distribution were brushed off completely up in Boston that year.

What a difference 18 months make.

The American anime industry had a new message to say at the New York Anime Festival, and it was “Our future is on the internet.”

Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you so. 😉

It appears that now that normal TV markets have entered the online business, it is safe for anime to do so as well. Manga Entertianment, Viz Media, and Tokyopop dedicated half of their panels on the subject. Within the past year, some companies have already offered up their shows on services such as iTunes and the Xbox Live Marketplace. These companies mentioned these services, but also boasted about their own initiatives into the market.

Manga Entertainment had the biggest presentation as they debut their new website. The website contains many clips from their titles, as well as links pointing to every possible retail outlet for the show. You can tell that they put a lot of work into providing as much information as they could for the website, and they strongly encourage visitors to legally download the shows from the different services available.

Tokyopop had the most unusual online plan that even a tech-savvy guy like myself still does not understand. They are creating “interactive manga” for use on computers, cell phones, and other portable devices. They showed off some demos, which I can best describe as a series of static artwork moving around with music and voice actors. One title even had some CGI animation created for it. They showed them as if they were being played on a cell phone (pictured above) or on an iPhone / iPod Touch. When I asked how was it going to be possible for the consumer to get these videos on their devices, the spokesperson could not seem to come up with an answer.

And ADV films announced that they were going to do some big things with their new title Gurren-Lagann. We all found out the next week what that was…

I’m happy to say that my question this year wasn’t “What about going to online distribution?” but rather, “now that you’re distributing online, how do you plan to improve the service?” The way I see it, there are two major hurdles that the anime industry needs to take care of in this new market: cost and DRM restrictions.

DRM is my biggest gripe. As a Mac user, there is only one download service that I can use, iTunes. Amazon Unboxed, Netflix, and all other forms of DRM’ed videos are all based on Microsoft Windows and will not play at all on any of my computers or on my iPhone.

Manga Entertainment was my first easy target. They have video downloads for sale on Windows-only DRM services. So to promote their new website, they held a contest to win a free iPod Touch for those at the convention. Once the Q&A came around, I asked them the obvious question. “If I pay to download a video from you, how am I going to be able to play it on that iPod Touch?” Again, that DRM would prevent them from playing on any iPods.

They took the question very seriously, and said that the reason they were giving out the iPods is because they were close to striking a deal with a particular company to get their shows on it. They were implying that the company was Apple, and that means that they’re shows will soon be available on iTunes. But as of this post, they’re still not on there.

And Viz Media spent so much talking about all the differant partnerships with online download services that they didn’t even have time for a Q&A. That’s a real shame, because all of those partnerships they were talking about were all for Windows DRM’ed services, and Viz’s very own laptop has a glowing apple on it.

I would say that’s the price I pay for going with a unique operating system, but come on. You can’t ignore the fact that not only were most of the journalist were using Mac, but even the industry panelist were giving their presentations on Mac computers! The anime audience is comprised of many Mac users, and the industry should realize this and move away from Windows-only DRM.

Or better yet, take a note from the music industry and just get rid of DRM all together. Fansubs are not DRM’ed, so they are open enough for both Windows and Mac anime fans to enjoy. What are you gaining from DRM? Are you afraid that these shows will more easy to pirate if you do restrict them? How is that any different than the current situation with fansubs? If a person buys a video with his own money, he owns it. It is his property. Wouldn’t he feel more inclined to protect his own property and not have others steal it? I’ll only let my best friends “borrow” music I bought from iTunes and Amazon. Anyone else can just buy their own damn copy.

DRM on videos will eventually go away, just like it is with music. I just hope the anime industry has the sense to do it first before everyone else does.

And then comes the issue of “free” versus “paid” services. I bought a couple of FUNimation’s shows off of iTunes. Spending 40 bucks on the whole season of Tsukuyomi -Moon Phase- seemed worth it to me, but I felt like spending $2 episode-per-episode off of Xbox to be too much. Was I crazy for actually spending all that money for that show? Are people really shelling out the cash to convince these companies “this is where we should be heading?”

I asked this to FUNimation as they were giving their presentation on their download services. Were their ventures into iTunes and the Xbox Live Marketplace really that profitable?

“Of course it’s profitable!” he tells me with not hesitation. “We wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t. The truth is, we want to put all of our titles on these pay-per-download services, and we are currently in talks with the Japanese license holders to make that happen.”

So there you go. One company clearly sees the financial potential of the internet and is going forward with moving into that market. But even if a paid service is too much for some anime fans, going to an ad-supported streaming service will also be a profitable solution. This is ADV’s plan for the future. By putting their material for free on the internet, they are not at risk of losing even more money than they were before. Collectors will still buy the DVD, and fansubbers will still download for free. The only difference is that now you can also profit off of the fansubbers with ads. As long as you make the experience easy and convenient, you can win over that community.

However, it seemed to me that there was still one company who still didn’t see any potential in the internet. That would be our good friends at Bandai. Bandai was one of the first to launch a download service well over a year ago with Eureka Seven. After a week of being free, each episode became very expensive. I think $5 each, but I’m not sure. That is because in both cases, the episode was DRM’ed for Windows only, so I never got to see any of it. Mr. Iyadomi, who was confident about the service before, denounced it as a complete failure at NYAF. They are giving up, and have no current plans to go back into the online market.

(on a side note, I really hope Iyadomi-bashing doesn’t become a recurring theme for me)

But I have a feeling Bandai will be regretting that early forfeit very soon. If there was one clear message I got form the American anime industry at the NYAF, it was that we are at the dawn of the internet revolution. After eight years of fighting, companies are finally changing their business model to embrace the online fansub community. Some are already seeing the benefits of doing so. Others are just dipping their feet into the water. And while there are some major hurdles that still need to be overcome, they will eventually get there.

I’m just hoping it happens sooner rather than later. 😉

Scott continues his series of posts from the New York Anime Festival.

Bandai Entertainment held a panel early Sunday morning that I had to attend. The topic: the US release of Lucky Star.

When I walked around the dealers room on Friday, I felt a strange attraction to the Bandai booth. It had become a shrine to “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.” A whole table was dedicated to every Haruhi DVD and CD they had to offer. Haruhi posters and banners hung everywhere. And there was even a TV that played the show’s famous ending theme song on a constant loop all weekend. This ensured that a huge group of people remained in front of the booth to show off their otaku dancing ability.

But what I really was amazed to see was a huge Lucky Star banner that was hung in parallel with Haruhi’s. Bandai’s announcement of the title was so quiet that I had completely forgot it was coming to the US. I had ask the rep if anything was available yet as far as Lucky Star goes.

“No, not yet,” she tells me. “We’re holding a panel on it Sunday morning.”

Oh really? What are you going to be talking about?

“Pretty much how we’re going to do a similar release with it as we did with Haruhi.”

Lucky Star’s popularity in Japan comes from riding on the coattails of Haruhi Suzumiya, and it seemed to me like Bandai was going to try the same approach to finding success in the US. Not that this would really be a bad idea. Bandai did an amazing job with the American Haruhi release. From a great online marketing campaign to special editions DVDs that made my Japanese friends envy, I do not have any complaints on how well they treated it. So I could only imagine what they would have in store for Lucky Star. For example, something like the English voice actors doing a series of “Lucky Channel” sketches would be really funny.

I got up extra early that Sunday to catch the bus into the city. I might have got a bit too early, because I ended up waited in the panel room for close to an hour. The crowd that eventually showed up was very small. The panel was added at the last minute, so it didn’t appear in the convention’s program. Also, it was Sunday morning, so who would want to wake up that early?

Besides for me, of course, and about 20 or so other dedicated Lucky Star fans.

When the panelist arrived, they started off with a fun Karaoke contest of Haruhi’s opening theme song. Afterwards, the audience demanded to do the ending theme song. The team obliged and many people in the audience got up to dance with the song. They weren’t able to play the Lucky Star theme song, but they did follow up with a hilarious “blooper” reel of some great ad libbing for the Haruhi Suzumiya dub.

This turned out to be the high point of the whole panel…

Bandai’s big announcement on how they were going handle the release of Lucky Star was the exact same thing the rep had told me two days earlier. “We’re going to do something similar to what we did with Haruhi.” What exactly did that mean? They couldn’t say. Online video campaign? Not sure. What would be coming with the DVDs? Not sure.

I think what Bandai really thought was going to be the big news was the announcement of the dub cast. They had a guessing game of hearing the dub voices, guessing who the actress was, and then hearing the actress reveal the answer while still in character. You can tell that they had recorded these sound clips specifically for this panel, as the voice actresses made remarks about the NYAF in these clips. But the game was a disaster because no one in the small audience seemed to be able to identify or even care about American voice actors.

Disappointment was high in the crowd as they opened up the panel to Q&A. One person was able to squeeze out some useful information from Bandai when they asked the reps “On what side do you start to eat a chocolate cornet?” They laughed, but then admitted that a chocolate cornet might be included in the first DVD. I’m not sure if they meant an edible cornet or not, but it was nice for them to tell us something about the release.

Then they called on yours truly for what I thought was going to generate a real thought-provoking response.

“Shows like Haruhi and Lucky Star gain so much of there popularly in America because they were very heavily fansubbed and illegally distributed over the internet. Do you find this kind of popularity to have been more profitable in the long-run or still harmful to overall sales?”

The answer I was looking for was for them to admit that the internet was actually a great tool for anime marketing. I thought they had came to that conclusion with the video campaign they did for Haruhi. People had already seen the show and loved it, so Bandai chose to reach out to that audience and ask them to further support the show. After seeing the shrine of Haruhi at the Bandai booth, it would appear to have been a huge success for them.

Bandai’s President Ken Iyadomi got on the mic to answer my question.

“Illegal downloads are a big problem, and we are losing a lot of money because of it.”

That was it, next question. No further details. No acknowledgments on successfully reaching out to the fansub community.

And to think that I even got up extra-early for him that day! (-_-)

Mr. Iyadomi was clearly ignorant of the fact that everyone in that audience was part of the fansub community. They had all seen Lucky Star already. They already know the characters, so they don’t really care about English voice actors. They already know the jokes, so they asked the panelists that cornet joke. They already know the Lucky Star dance, so they begged Bandai to play the song so they can all do it.

But this all means that they already know that they love the series. They love it so much that they would wake up early on a Sunday morning to find out what the future holds for it. If they didn’t care about that, they wouldn’t be there. The crowd was small, but every single one of these people represented the future of Lucky Star in America. How could he ignore this?

Iyhadomi further sparked my fiery, as well as that of other bloggers, later in the day at Bandai’s official industry panel. This was a panel that many more people actually attended. They made announcements on other titles, and restated the little information they gave about Lucky Star earlier that day. But during the Q&A, one innocent question was asked about plans to go to new high-definition DVD formats. To paraphrase Mr. Iyadomi:

We are not really that enthusiastic about the new DVD formats. They are not region coded, so we foresee problems with releasing titles in both Japan and America. An anime DVD releases in Japan for $50. A year later, that same DVD releases in America for only $25. The Japanese fan will clearly wait a year to import the American DVD at a much cheaper price.

You could hear the groans pop up over this statement. One person quickly got up to the mic to pretty much ask, “Wait a minute, are you fucking kidding about all of that? Are you really going to hold back on new formats for that reason?” Chris Beveridge of AnimeOnDVD.com immediately posted a rant within minutes that indirectly berated Iyadomi on this statement. If only they had been around at the Lucky Star panel to hear his reaction on my question… (-_-)

Mr. Iyadomi clearly doesn’t get it. Because it is a niche market that comes imported overseas, the American anime industry must rely on the latest technology in order to exist. It starts with the small VHS market in the 90’s. It explodes with the bilingual DVD market at the turn of the century. And its future is in the openness of the internet and new digital media. This is already clearly evident within the underground fansub community, and if Iyadomi doesn’t wise up to this idea soon, he’s going to get left behind.

I will finish up my series from the NYAF next week with this topic and how other companies are already preparing for the internet revolution of anime in America.

EDIT:

Okay, this post is still creating a lot of buzz even weeks after I posted it. Let me just clarify a couple of misconceptions and mistakes I’ve been seeing.
Lucky Star is not ruined in the US – Just because Mr. Iyadomi doesn’t get it doesn’t mean that Bandai’s marketing department won’t pull through with an awesome release. These are the folks that did Haruhi, after all. I’m sure that we are all going to satisfied with it. My “letdown” was how little they had to say about the release at NYAF.

Dubs are not bad- Because of my poor eyesight, I don’t read subtitles when it comes to watching anime. My Japanese is far from perfect, so I do end up losing a lot of the story when I watch in Japanese. So if there is a dub track, I’ll easily switch over to it so that I don’t have to worry about translating. I watched Haruhi in Japanese back when it was fansubbed, and I watched it again in English on DVD. I intend to do the same with Lucky Star. But just because I don’t mind dubs doesn’t mean I give a damn about American voice actors. 😉

A paraphrase is a paraphrase- I don’t recall exactly what he said, but that was clearly the point he made with that statement. The link to Chris’s retort will verify this. However, I did simplify some facts to convey the message more easily:

Blu Ray is region code- But Japan and the US fall into the same region, so it doesn’t really matter.

A release in America after one year is not common- But Bandai’s US release of Haruhi, Lucky Star, and the Girl Who Jumped Through Time are close to a year after the Japanese release. It looks like they turning to faster US releases these days.

I also changed the formating of the quote to better show that it is my paraphrase and not a direct quote.

Scott continues his series of posts from the New York Anime Festival.

“So you mean to tell me that I can only find this book on Amazon?” I ask Tokyopop’s marketing person. The book in question was Manga Sutra, originally called Futari H in Japan, and it is a title I have great interest in.

“Well no. You can also buy it at sex shops,” she tells me as if it was no big deal.

“Yeah… well…” I give a slight blush over this idea. I picture a darkly lit shop with various phallic objects, leather straps, and tubes of lubrication. “I don’t think I’ll be going to any of those anytime soon…”

“Really?” asks an older female journalist as she joined in the conversation, “You really should. It’s a real groovy time.” The two girls then broke into that “Oh! You’re so bad!” giggle, leaving me to blush some more and move on to my next question.

However, this was a very important point that I don’t think should be brushed over quite so easily as that. When Tokyopop announced that they were going to be releasing the series in America, I was happy but very skeptical on how they were going to treat it. The story takes a somewhat realistic look on sex, taking away the fantasy elements you’d find in pornography and instead focusing on the difficulties one would find in the act. It’s this unique approach to the subject that has made this series the huge success that it is in Japan.

But sex is still a very taboo subject in America, especially in a time when the government focuses on abstinence programs and when the whole nation goes into shock if a bare breast is exposed on national TV. I had my doubts that a successful company like Tokyopop would risk their reputation on bringing such a mainstream sexual comic so casually into our market. And sure enough, I was correct.

Manga Sutra will not be sold in bookstores like Borders or Barnes & Noble. Instead, the only way you could find it is by going online or, as the rep very causally told me, going to a sex shop. True, they say that normal book stores would never sell such a book, but the impression I’m getting is the publisher didn’t even try to put any pressure on the stores.

This makes me wonder to Tokyopop:

Who the hell is going to be your target audience with this series?

In Japan, manga is mainstream enough that you can sell this book to a non-otaku market. For example, take a young college girl who just so happens to overhear her girlfriends talking about the series. This girl probably hasn’t picked up manga since her shoujo days, but the curiosity and allure of sexual performance makes her stroll into the “young men” section of her regular book store and check out a volume. Maybe if she’s too embarrassed to do that, she’d pick up the two exclusive “For Ladies” volumes in the female section of the store. There’s nothing that unusual about this, and I’m sure that’s how this book has sold as well as it did in that country.

But in America, only a manga fan would ever consider reading this in a comic form. A college girl who is not a manga fan would never start because of the subject. One company very clearly said at the convention, “You can’t convince people to start liking manga. They have to fall into becoming fans themselves, and then you can start to appeal to them after that.”

But manga fans are clearly not the market that Tokyopop is going for. By not fighting for it to be in the same area as their other works, they are sheltering all exposure of the title to their biggest potential audience. Manga fans who are not already familiar with the title will never have a chance to see it, and fans who already like the title (like myself) are going to have a hard time finding it.

Instead, they are trying to appeal to the a “sex shop” audience, which is a subculture all its own that sure as hell is not made up of many geeky manga fans. These people are very outgoing exhibitionist, even by the mere fact that they would be seen in a sex shop. They might be curious about the book, but they will quickly realize it’s not for them.

The sex shop audience are already very familiar with intercourse, and probably have already read the many sex guides already available. There is nothing in Manga Sutra that they don’t already know. In fact, they might even consider it boring and completely inaccurate in most cases. Manga Sutra was not made for highly sexual people. It was made for people unfamiliar with it or are still trying to get used to it. So I will be shocked if this book manages to find a market in American sex shops.

So who should Tokyopop be targeting with this title? First of all, the obvious answer is manga fans. You should never try to go outside that demographic with any comic. But along with the college-age audience that it was originally intended for, I think that Tokyopop should also go for the American teenage audience.

There is a big problem with hiding teenage sexuality in this country, and many teens have no choice but to turn to pornography on the internet to find answers and to satisfy their needs. But Manga Sutra could serve as a good alternative to this. It provides a story that is entertaining, funny, and very erotic, which should appeal to any teenager. It also portrays the lead characters as being in a healthy, loving, and most importantly, monogamous marriage. This is something you will never find in pornography but serves as a role model for proper relationships. Since safe-sex and condom usage is not nearly as common placed in the US as it is in Japan, more information would have to be added in the US version on this. But all in all, this would be a very positive book about sex that teens will actually want to read.

But this is all just a liberal fantasy from an otaku wishing that one of his favorite series finds success in America. Ms. Tokyopop Marketing had an advance copy of vol. 1 at the convention, and she generously allowed me to look through it. Each volume of the book in the US is comprised of two volumes of the Japanese version, so it was quite large for a comic. After years of reading the series in Japanese, it was nice to finally see it in English, and in very nice quality as well.

I should enjoy it while I still can. Tokyopop says that they only plan to sell five volumes in America (which are volumes 1-10 in Japan), and then they will decided what to do with the rest of the series after that. I have a feeling we’ll be lucky if the series even makes it that point…

Volume one comes out next week. I’ve already reserved my copy on Amazon since I don’t find myself looking for it at a sex shop anytime soon.

Tokyopop is really screwing up with this one. They are keeping the lid on this series to the manga fans while marketing it to an audience that will never buy it. It could have had some potential, but not like this. Manga Sutra is doomed in America, and that’s a real damn shame.

This is a first in series of posts focused on my experiences and thoughts on the first annual New York Anime Festival, which took place on Dec 7-9, 2007.

It happened to me at the MangaNext convention a couple of months ago. It was a small convention compared to Otakon or the NYAF, so I decided not to take a vacation day from work and only go to the Saturday events.As I walked through the narrow hallways of the hotel, I felt very uneasy. I was becomeing very annoyed with the other attendees, and I knew it wasn’t because of all the ugly, poorly-made Naruto costumes.

They were loud, screaming to each other in the small hallway. They were annoying, complaining on-and-on about how one anime character was not nearly as cool as another. They were rowdy, running in the hallways and “glomping” complete strangers. I felt like just telling them all to calm-the-f***-down!

But then I realized they were otaku kids. That’s what they do. This was their chance to be away from school and just goof off with their buddies, blow off that teenage angst and whatnot. I remember what it was like to be like that.

But if I can realize this and still be annoyed by their wild behavior, then that must mean… that must mean…

I’m getting too old for this!

orz

Sure, I’m only 23, but half-a-year of the post-graduation life has put me way beyond the level of these kids. I’m doing a 9-to-5, paying rent, and I simply do not have the same energy I did before. Not that there’s really anything wrong with that. There’s no way in hell I would ever go back to the life of studying and exams. But looking around at my fellow convention attendees, I felt that there was no way I could ever consider them “peers” of mine.

Am I past my prime when it comes to going to anime conventions? Was I starting to become one of those guys?

I have always been fully aware of the creepy older people that would show up to these events. They were typically male, over weight, and balding with grey hair. Most of them would be carrying a tripod and camera, and snapping off shots of the underaged girls in sexy cosplay. How completely sick and pathetic! There they were, sticking out so much among the youth. l just can’t help but to be disgusted by them.

Was I turning into one of those guys? Was my presence at these cons starting to become creepy?

This realization really put a damper on my MangaNext experience, and it was a real fear I had going into the NYAF.

I did take a vacation day for the NYAF and attended the convention when it opened on Friday. My friend was not going to be able to come with me that day because she was still in college and had an exam to take. In a way, this should have been a good indication of things to come.

Even though it was a much larger convention, I didn’t feel nearly as overwhelmed as I did at MangaNext. I was able to walk around the entire floor with no problems. There was no running, no screaming, no glomping, just a peaceful and enjoyable experience. And I know just why that was:

There were no kids!

It was a Friday, a school day. All the kids were still at school! The attendees that were able to show up were all adults like me. Most of them were professional journalist, writing for the Anime News Network or Publishers Weekly. But others were just hobbiest, taking in the panels and discussions without the flood of attention craving youngsters. I ended up having some serious discussions with the other attendees.

The kids came on Saturday and Sunday, but I knew to stay away from the general hallway and stick with the professional media at the panels. This is where I felt more in my place. I loved this audience. These were finally the folks that I could call my peers.

With the social awkwardness that you often find in otaku, you can see how easily one would lose sight of what’s appropriate and not-appropriate for their age. There’s not a more pathetic scene than the balding overweight man being surrounded by hyperactive teenagers. But there is still a place for adult anime fan in the convention scene without it being creepy. Stick with the professionals as the discussion panels. They actually do talk about very interesting things that will keep away the ADD youngster.

And please, never ever go around taking photos of underaged girls in sexy cosplay… that’s still very wrong on so many levels.

::shutters in horror::

I’ve had a running theme with this blog over how disgusted I am with anime fans who only watch illegal downloads, and how I wish anime companies would look for a more creative way of reaching out to this market. So when ADV quietly announced their new Anime Network online streaming video service, I thought it was best news to come from the industry since the launch of the Tokyopop’s “Authentic Manga” line.

I’ve been enjoying the service for about a month now, and last week sent out an honest email to ADV on how I think the company can improve on it:

Great service you’re offering. Since I do not have cable service at my house, and since I only use a Mac computer, my choices are very limited when it comes to viewing TV content legally over the internet. I rely heavily on NBC’s Hulu.com and the Adult Swim Fix streaming service. As a devoted anime fan, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you’re offering a similar service.

Based on my experience with these other services, here are the things I notice are missing from your service. I feel that these are huge problems that can dissatisfy the user and drive him away forever. They should be fixed ASAP.

1) You need a full screen mode. Keep all the ads in, but if you’re going for a market of people used to watching anime on their computer, no one wants to be restricted to such a small part of their screen.

2) Episode needs to auto-play after commercial break. The user starts the episode and then sits back to enjoy it. Can you imagine how annoyed they get when they have to get up half-way through the episode to click on the “play” button again? Makes us even more pissed off about ads… (-_-)…

Now here is the long-term fix that you should implement on the next version of your player:

3) Dub and subtitle support! Like a DVD, your flash animation should incorporate a video stream, two language tracks (English and Japanese), and a subtitle overlay. This would put you far above what normal fansubs can offer, and win over so much more of the market you’re aiming for.

Again, I love the service you are offering, and I think it could be highly successful if you fix these problems I’ve noticed with it.

Days after I sent this email, ADV makes a huge announcement of a relaunch of the service with the promise to make brand-new shows available for free. They’re using the newest Studio Gainax show, Gurren-Lagann, as their flagship title.

So how much does this relaunch improve on the first iteration of the service? Well, in my email, I suggested two easy fixes and one slightly more difficult fix. Did they fix them?

Easy fix #1 – Nope, there is still no full screen mode.
Easy fix #2- Nope, you still gotta manually press “play” again
Difficult fix #3- Actually, yes! Sort of…

Gurren-Lagann is subtitled, but the crazy thing is that it’s soft-subtitle! That means that the user has the option of turning the subtitles on or off via a button in the control panel. This is a unique function that you don’t normally find in flash video players or even in most fansubs. But this is the kind of innovation that can pursued the illegal download to switch over to legit methods.

There is currently no dual-audio support for Lagann, but I’m sure that is because it has not been fully dubbed yet. The subtitling proves that someone over at ADV has the ability to create a flash video player that’s not just another Youtube clone. I can only hope that we start seeing some dual audio content pop up on the service very soon.

So kudos to ADV for sticking to their streaming service and finally bringing some innovation to the industry. There are still some easy fixes that should be made as soon as possible, but they are still on the right path to success anyway. I hope to anime fans embrace this new service so that more advancements can be to this wonderful medium.

Hello everyone! It’s been a while, has it?

Well I’m back, so let’s party!

Through out its three-year life, this blog has gone through major periods of inactivity because of school work. Right after I graduated from college, I did have about a month of updates before I was hired for a full-time software engineering position in a small startup company. Coincidentally, during my job interview, my future co-workers talked about this blog because it was the first thing they saw after doing a google search of my name. Boy, did they come at a good time… ^^;

Since then, my life has been busy with the whole “moving out and living on your own” experience. Getting my own apartment, paying my own bills, pimping out my bachelor pad with an Xbox and big-screen HDTV, and adopting two very cute kittens, Tiger and Nekomimi.

Any responsible pet owner should make sure that his pet only watches the best quality animeBut I haven’t stopped being the anime fan that I was before. I’ve still been keeping up-to-date on the latest news from the industry. I’ve been watching a couple of new fansubs every season, and I’ve been buying all the best new DVDs to hit state-side. While I chug away at work everyday, my iPhone is constantly playing some sweet Mosaic.wav into my ears. And I have also been corresponding with many Japanese otaku via the website Twitter.

Apparently they find a white American otaku to be some kind of novelty… ::shrugs::

But I still feel very disconnected from the American anime community. A lot of stuff has gone down in the past month that I feel must be addressed. Sadly, most of my audience these days does not speak English, so I’ve been very limited in what I can say and express. So I’m getting back to doing what I love doing, pondering and talking about American anime fandom via the Anime Almanac. I can’t promise I’ll be around for the long haul this time, but I will try my best to pace myself well enough to at least have one post every week.

… provided I’m not prevented from typing due to uncontrollable circumstances…

For my next couple of posts, I will talk about my experiences at the New York Anime Festival last week. You can expect to hear my thoughts on the new con, graduating from being a school kid to a working adult at these events, the Manga Sutra, those assholes at Bandai entertainment, and other things.

Thanks to everyone who still has me linked on your blogroll. I will try to update my own blogroll for you all.

To my past readers, thanks for your support and I hope you’ll enjoy my rants again.

To new readers, welcome aboard. I hope you like what you see.