It is, if anything, the reverse of “Cool Japan.” Rather than spread Japanese culture and influence to the world, a new manga titled Our Alliance – A Lasting Partnership has been published by the US Military in a bid to win the hearts of local Japanese citizens. The manga presents America as a blond, rabbit-eared boy named Usa-kun, who enthusiastically explains the facts of geopolitical neces...
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The San Diego Comic Con has been around for years, but nothing draws in the media like scandal. So it is unsurprising that the media flocked to rumors on Twitter of a stabbing, complete with (entirely fabricated) gory details like blood-drenched shirts and gaping wounds. The reality of it was more schoolyard fight than slasher, more petulant than perverse. This was no Akihabara knifing or even...
A wild stabbing spree took place outside of the Apple Store downtown, police sources said. The violence took place at around 6 p.m., at the corner of 14th Street and 9th Avenue. Four people were stabbed, although none of the injuries were life threatening, the sources said. That’s it. At its initial posting, that is the entirety of the NBC New York article on the stabbing outside an Apple...
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” - Mahatma Gandhi We live, as the Chinese would have it, in interesting times. No, let us be more frank than that. We live in absurd times. As the BP oil spill continues, as North Korea makes warlike noises despite warnings from nearly every other civilized country with an interest in the matter, as the men from Union Carbide get off wi...
This is the most hilarious juxtaposition ever. It’s not Kaicho wa Maid-sama and The Game that I find funny, mind you. It’s anime otaku and The Game. In a sense, this would seem to be a perfect match: take clueless, dateless, raging nerds, and inculcate them with the techniques passed down by the dating equivalent of kung-fu masters. Surely that should bring about a change in their ...
Is virginity a character flaw? Traditionally in Japan young girls were assumed to be maidens, to the point where the terms were at times used interchangeably. Perhaps in today’s sex-positive, metropolitan world, it’s assumed that youngsters of both genders will fool around. In that light, B gata H kei appears to be something of a deconstruction of high schoolers’ attitudes towa...
Sometimes, people hate what they don’t understand. Sometimes, politicians go so far as to demonstrate this hatred on the public record. State Representative Nickolas Levasseur (D-NH), pictured to the right above, posted to Facebook: Anime is a prime example of why two nukes just wasn’t enough. Leaving aside whether or not the Representative personally enjoys anime, this is an elected...
The recent theft of costumes and props from an AKB48 set highlights an interesting behavioral pattern. Viewed in a harsh light, it might be seen as a kind of voodoo, a ritual shamanism: obtaining relics of important people so as to be nearer to them and draw upon their power. Mainichi Japan concludes its article on the incident with a tell-tale quote: “We intended to sell the items after g...
The whole principle is wrong; it’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can’t eat steak. - Robert Heinlein (commonly attributed to Mark Twain) Fans raged on twitter and IRC channels today as FUNimation announced that Dance in the Vampire Bund DVDs would be released censored. Ordinarily, broadcast versions of risque anime are censored, and DVD versions contain the f...
Good artists copy; great artists steal. - Attributed to Pablo Picasso What is the difference between copying something and stealing it? To copy is to mimic, to ape, at all steps being cognizant of the fact that the thing you are copying is not your own. To steal is to take something and make it your own. Therein lies the fundamental difference in attitude between the technically competent a...
As spring approaches, Valentine’s Day is upon us, and even the most hardened anime otaku’s thoughts must turn to love. Though some resist this destiny, I will not run, scream, or fight. I have always been of the opinion that the most important decisions are those you make in an instant and stick with for a lifetime. Therefore, in accordance with time-honored tradition,
Suffering is moe. Crucified on the cross, Jesus Christ knew profound suffering. Therefore, Jesus Christ is profoundly moe. This, along with a few other propositions of dubious logical merit, forms the basis of Let’s Bible, a tale of Biblical proportions that toes the line between being bizarrely funny and simply wrong. Perhaps, as James Wood said, the Creator cannot be reified, but in L...
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