Hitokage said:
You should! It also includes children getting burned alive.
... Well that definitely sounds pretty different from the Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars anime I watched... huh.
mAcOdIn said:
Maybe, but that's also why I'm cooler, because I'm true to myself and not wanting to be any kind of easily definable guy.
Cool, maybe, but more likely to be wrong in the end. That's how the dark side is, you know.
Colors? Light isn't a color!
Details, details...
Did you choose your user name as, damnit, what's it called when you use different words that begin with the same thing to mean that word, anyways, did you choose your username as one of those things instead of buddy fucker? We used to always use Black Falcon instead of Buddy Fucker when I was in the service for some reason, not like we were opposed to cussing or offending people so not sure why it was done.
Well, my initials are BBF and my online name is ABF, but I'm not sure that that was actually a conscious similarity... I chose the name back in late 1998, when I needed a better name than my initials to use in online games like Starcraft. ... Well, I wanted to make a new SC account because I didn't like the one I had because of how many losses I had (versus few wins), and somehow I came up with this. I still bought legos at that point (castle being my favorite), and the Black Falcons always have been my favorite castle legos (you know, the ones that look like my avatar, from the '80s to early '90s, way better than their rivals the lion-shield Crusaders... I always considered the Black Falcons to be the good guys and the Crusaders to be evil.)... I think the idea was something silly like 'I am the minifigure' or something, as in not 'Black Falcon' in general but 'A Black Falcon' as in one of them, but it was 12 years ago, so year. Also, maybe intentionally (I really forget, it was a while ago) it also got me a unique username... I've never had it used anywhere on the internet where I've tried to register.
That's good, I don't like those "Name9943" names. I wanted something original, not just something with a bunch of numbers on the end because of how many other people had used it already.
So yeah, I noticed the ABF/BBF thing at some point, but I don't remember if I actually thought about it when I chose the name.
I noticed, but I figured it was the kind of joke you thought was half true and wanted to nip in the bud the concept I'm your mirror opposite or arch rival.
Ah. No, I don't think we're mirror images or something, we just disagree on some stuff, and not on others.
I know what it's about, I've been meaning to catch it for awhile so I like it's concept.
Well, it's good that you're going to watch it then.
Sadly, it's in that same "meant to see it" category as Kino's Journey was.
Watch it! I think it's amazing. It's the only show ABe is almost entirely responsible for, and it's just so, so impressive. If you like that style of show, you should have watched it already.
Jexhius said:
Well, there is in that most people don't bother to read them!
I'm not complaining, I make them myself quite often.
This in pretty much it.
People who aren't going to read a long post likely wouldn't have replied anyway, I think...
On that note, how about I reply to this, from a while earlier in the thread. (I've had a few tabs open for a few days to reply to, I need to get to them eventually...)
mAcOdIn said:
I like them both but I think the type of ending is purely story related not really something necessarily good or bad.
I do like some kinds of endings better than others, and sometimes it does affect how much I like the series. See, for an obvious example, Texhnolyze. I'd have liked it more overall if the ending wasn't so insanely depressing. It's a great series, mostly, but that ending really does hurt...
But there's different kinds of violence. You have the teen on teen or adult on adult violence which I generally think is alright but the adult on teen or younger violence is displayed more often that I think it should. It gets kind of crazy when seemingly benign shows like Squid Girl have adults punching an apparent child, sure she has tentacles but still, or like when a teacher physically whacks a student, you'd never see Mr. Belding hit a student in saved by the bell nor would it be considered comedic.
True, I agree; the fact that in anime corporal punishment -- teachers hitting their students -- is accepted as normal is something I also find disturbing, that's been banned for decades in this part of the country. Supposedly down south it's still legal, but not up here in New England... that kind of punishment isn't healthy and isn't right, I agree.
Anime likes to play hitting people for laughs, a lot. This happens in Western stuff too -- "it's only funny because it didn't happen to you" stuff, etc. -- but the tone is different in anime, too often, I agree... hitting somebody else shouldn't be an accepted way of telling them that you disagree with them, but in anime it's the standard way things work.
Obviously some conflict is played up because it's a story and there needs to be some, but that doesn't explain all of it. This stuff doesn't anger me like sexism does, probably because I care about that as a major current issue while the kinds of violence you describe there don't happen often in reality, here at least, but you're absolutely right that it's bothersome stuff.
Regardless though, both sexism and mild(don't know the term for accepted light violence) violence are realities and while they may not exist on the same scale as seen in anime they should be present in some anime else everyone would complain it was whitewashing societies ills or too afraid to tackle them.
True, but I don't think there's too much danger of that. If anything media is probably more likely to emphasize the worst, at times, because if they always focused on the best of the culture they come from there'd be less grounds for conflicts to base their series off...
Oh, and yeah, I don't think anime overstates the sexism of Japanese society, no. It really is worse there. As for casual violence as you describe it, though, I really have no idea if that stuff happens there or not. Obviously in terms of murder and stuff America is far worse, but that's different, so I have no idea.
It may be a Japanese thing, I don't know nor make any claims to, but I personally find it disturbing, ok not disturbing as I can't really feel that level of emotion but rather odd I guess) that no one seems to ever want to involve, inconvenience or get the help of anyone else as if it's some kind of terrible thing. I understand why one teen may not want to involve another equally rather helpless teen in whatever their fictional struggle may be but it's too common that all the common authority figures are also seen as non options for one to get help from. You'll almost never see a character go to the police, teacher, parents or even an older sibling asking for help in life or death situations, even token attempts are rare, about the only authority figure that is ok to ask for help is someone in the medical field. Being a cop must be nice in Japan where they train their children through TV to never ask the cop for help, same as student councilors and anyone else designated by designated and responsible to help yet depicted through anime as not being a viable route for students to take. Now of course maybe it isn't a social thing, maybe it's just because it's cooler when the hero does it on his own but when nearly 100% of the shows out there employ that technique during every crises but a fever you're training a society that's ripe to, I dunno, disintegrate into something bad.
Huh. I hadn't thought about that, but I'd think that it's just because it's cooler/more important if the hero solves their own problems... I'd never thought that it reflected anything about their society at large. I guess it's possible that it does, though, I don't know...my first thought though is just that heroes have to solve their own problems or they're not heroes, right? But I do see something in what you say, even though I don't completely agree.
First though, of course anime isn't exactly all of Japanese media, but just one subset of it. I wouldn't really say anything absolutely for society at large just from anime (and this does include sexism, I don't say what I do about Japan and sexism just because of anime).
Beyond that, though, considering the still stratified nature of Japanese society, yeah, you'd think that people WOULD be trained to go to authority figures for help... but you're right that it's usually not like that in anime. Instead people seem to be expected to solve problems on their own.
However, also consider the ages of the characters... most anime characters are teenagers. Teenagers are probably less likely to go to authorities for help than adults, I'd guess, part of that 'teenage rebellion' thing... though that whole issue is partially a cultural thing, they have it too now.
But yes, sure, I think a lot of anime characters would be much better off if they saw a therapist, regularly.
Apart from all of their other problems, maybe some could be convinced that no, it's not really better to try to deal with all of your problems on your own with no help...
I agree, it is disturbing.
(lolicon) Yeah, definitely.
Unlike Shouta I don't find it annoying I was just wondering if there was something deeper there, as far as I'm concerned you're free to bitch about anything you want and I do think it was on topic with OreImo.
I think the series deserved it.
