A while back I was on the Ani-Gamers podcast along with the Reverse Thieves where we talked about our experiences at Otakon 2009 this past July in Baltimore. There’s some overlap with my written review of the invent, but I invite you to listen anyway and hear us crack wise in Real Time.
This episode of Ani-Gamers can be found here.
One of the most amazing and shocking reveals in the world of giant robot villainy was the discovery that Mazinger Z’s infamous first two adversaries, Garada K7 and Doublas M2, were actually once a single sentient entity known as Garadoubla. Garadoubla turns out to be a heroic figure to the Mycenae and also a warrior of honor and pride (and also three heads). In fact, he was so beloved that they referred to him as the Hero Garadoubla. Thanks to extensive research, I have unraveled more information on this god of the Mycenae.
Archaeological evidence shows that Garadoubla was to the Mycenaeans what Mazinger Z is to the modern Japanese. Children would play with clay dolls fashioned after Garadoubla’s visage. Musicians would sing about the strength, size, and reliability of Garadoubla when he unites the power of justice, love, and friendship. The most famous of the songs celebrating Garadoubla began with the following opening chorus:
Ga Ra Ra! Ga Ra Ra! Garadoubla! Ga Ra Ra! Ga Ra Ra Ra Garadoubla!
According to records, the heroic tales of Garadoubla, the honorable warrior of the Mycenae, were recorded on ancient illustrated stone tablets by a well-regarded artisan known as Gonagacles. Sadly most of his work was destroyed in the great fire that exterminated the Mycenae Empire, but the memories of his adventures would remain in the Greek consciousness and would eventually be retold as Garadoubkaisar and Etumos Garadoubla.
Anime Weekend Atlanta has announced that one of their guests of honor will be Imagawa Yasuhiro, acclaimed director of the Giant Robo OVA and the currently-running Shin Mazinger TV series. AWA is running this year from September 18-20.
Meanwhile, New York Anime Festival, running September 25-27, has already announced famed Gundam creator and director Tomino Yoshiyuki as its guest of honor. If you’re a fan of giant robots and you don’t have the time or resources to go to both, this can be a very painful decision to make.
To help you with your dilemma, try asking yourself the following two questions.
Question 1: Do you love Gundam?
Question 2: Do you love G Gundam even more?
After an initial introduction of the demographics of those who chose to partake in the Otaku Diaries, the Reverse Thieves have released the second part of their study. This time around, the discussion centers around the word “otaku” and what it means to anime fans.
A large number of their results showed that many anime fans consider the word “otaku” to have negative connotations and may even be upset if someone referred to them as an otaku. It is, in other words, an insult. Sometimes, the negative connotations come from wanting to distance oneself from the “other” anime fans, e.g. socially inept naruto fans, and other times they stem from wanting to use the word as the Japanese use it. Of course, I can’t be the only one to see the irony in a person denying that they’re an otaku while also championing the true, JAPANESE definition of the word, or at least their interpretation of the Japanese definition.
I remember years ago when I was part of a Pokemon community on the internet (the Team Rocket Headquarters if you want to know), where one of the site owners got very upset whenever someone called him an otaku, insisting that the term was in reality extremely derogatory and that it should only be used for the most extreme cases of anime fandom. It was around that time that I began developing my hypothesis on the Path of Otaku Self-Acceptance, or the path the typical anime fan takes when confronted with the term “otaku.”
Phase 1) I Want to Be an Otaku!
This phase is usually the first one that new anime fans feel. Anime is fresh and exciting, and they want to see more and more of it. They consider the status of “otaku” to be a goal to strive for. However, if they start to sour towards the anime community they may enter…
Phase 2) Don’t Call Me an Otaku!
This is the point at which you find many of the subjects of the Otaku Diaries, as well as many anime fans you know. Sometimes they genuinely are just not that into anime and don’t want to be considered hardcore fans, but often times you see that many of the people who fall into this category are simply in denial. They hide their anime fandom from others as hard as they can, and they will put on airs so that no one can discover their terrible, terrible secret. Eventually, some of them pretend not to be otaku so hard that they permanently make the switch. Others, however, may grow tired of the charade and come to acceptance. That is what leads them to…
Phase 3) I am an Otaku
This is the point at which people realize that “Otaku” is just a descriptor. It is no more a self-inherent badge of shame or badge of pride than any other part of a person’s life, like saying “I am short” or “I work in construction.” It’s where I hope to see more anime fans, and I believe it’s the key to becoming true to oneself, provided you actually are an otaku.
I am an Otaku. Are you?
Discussing artistic taste is always a mine field no matter the subject, and anime and manga are no exception. People can have very different backgrounds, mindsets, and approaches to anime and manga, and when there is a rift separating two people on many levels, misunderstandings occur. When you have a common point of interest such as anime, people may feel united by that common interest only to realize (or not realize) that it is very possible for people to enjoy anime differently.
That is not to say that arguments about such topics are meaningless, even on the internet as some might claim. It is an opportunity to listen to another point of view and to learn from it with an open mind. Now, an open mind doesn’t mean that you accept everything and let your opinion be bent by every little comment by a strong-voiced individual, but what it does mean is that you engage the other person’s opinion and if they’re wrong you show why you feel they’re wrong without having it descend into a shouting match.
I think one of the main reasons internet arguments are so prone to going nowhere is that they are not based on debate, but rather pride. “I am right, you are wrong.” This happens so much that it ended up creating a countermeasure, “We’re all right, so let’s stop arguing.” One is a statement which bolsters pride, the other is a statement that preserves pride. Neither is correct, but neither is wrong, and what I feel to be the real key to enjoying art, enjoying anime and manga, is to never stand at the absolutes. You can stand very close to them, but once you arrive at an absolute, no matter how right it feels, you’ve now cut yourself off from growth and change.
I hope that more and more people will desire internet debate about their hobbies not to assert their sense of righteousness but to learn and to inform. If you liked this post, I would also recommend reading my post on the Geek Logical Fallacy, which warns of the dangers of applying a “logical” mind to everything in life.
Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: A young man is an outcast among his peers, and he spends each day barely interacting with them. When he’s alone though, his true personality emerges, and he makes grand displays of superiority, insisting that he is above everyone else.
Here’s the twist: Our intrepid hero is proving his superiority by masturbating daily in the girls’ bathroom.
And now here’s the second, vital twist: The story ends up, against all odds, actually being really good.
That is Onanie Master Kurosawa (Onanie meaning masturbation), a 4-volume doujin work which goes from being a sort of parody of Death Note and Code Geass-type manga, to a recounting of characters not unlike Anonymous messageboard posters who lash out at the world in pointless and self-destructive ways, to a stark and heartfelt look at redemption and growing up and, well, acknowledging the mistakes of your youth. Most likely what happened was that the creators, Ise Katsura and Yoko, realized that they couldn’t just keep milking the same gag (no pun intended…maybe), and that it needed something extra, something dramatic.
And the most amazing thing of all is how well the comic transitions from absurd comedy into down-to-earth drama. It’s something many a webcomic have attempted, with few ever succeeding. For one thing, Onanie Master Kurosawa transitions far better than Megatokyo did, and I suspect it might not be even be a fair comparison.
That’s not to say Onamas (as it’s called by fans) is without its faults. The transition was surprisingly good, but it did have quite a few bumps along the way, and for those who aren’t comfortable with that change in content it might not be an enjoyable read. Also the art is good but not fantastic, which when I think about it is hardly a negative, as it were. Like Megatokyo above and even parts of Nausicaa, the artwork is done primarily in pencil, which may seem sloppy.
The entire series has been scanlated, so go check it out. Raws are available as well, and if you can understand Japanese better than you can read it, the Nico Nico Douga Onanie Master Kurosawa Community has uploaded some dramatic readings.
To the otaku in the New York City area eager to learn a thing or three about the media we love so very much, I must inform you that there is once more a “Vertical Vednesday” tomorrow, July 29. The topic? Light novels, something that has had a great degree of difficulty penetrating the US market, partially due to how they tend to get bunched in with the manga section. It’s a subject I personally do NOT have much knowledge on, so I will be eager to listen, and if you’ve never heard Vertical Inc. marketing director Ed Chavez speak about manga, etc. in person, then you owe it to yourself to attend. I’ll let Vertical explain it better.
Once again, the plan is to meet at the Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya in Manhattan, located between 40th and 41st St on 6th Ave at 6:30pm. From there, we may move to a different location, so get there on time! Also, this time we will have special guests Ronald Kelts from Japanimerica and possibly Ioannis (Yani) Mentzas, editorial director of Vertical.
Seats are limited, so if you plan to come, RSVP Ed Chavez one way or another.
Before manga author Wakasugi Kiminori created his most famous work, Detroit Metal City, he created a gag comic called Amateur Wrestling Ken-chan. Seeing it at Book Off one day, and seeing that it was just a single volume, I decided to pick it up. Having read it now, I can say that Wakasugi has improved tremendously by the time he began working on DMC.
The basic premise of Ken-chan is that a high school student named Nagano Kenpei is convinced/forced to join the amateur wrestling team at his school. Among his teammates are a fat kid, a creepy goth, and a homoerotic yet athletically fit wrestling ace who faints in ecstasy whenever his nipples are grazed. Kenpei is similar to Negishi Souichi, the protagonist of DMC, in that he’s a weak kid with a far-off love interest who he just can’t seem to make a move on. However, unlike Negishi, Kenpei is in many ways an irredeemable human being, and is thoroughly unlikable as a main character. You never actually cheer for Kenpei and his blackened heart. Instead, if there’s anyone you would cheer for, it’s the incredibly hairy half-Russian wrestling coach and silver medalist Numata Puchkoff. He’s a dumb yet earnest guy who wants to help the kids do their best, even if they have no real motivation and never get any for the entire duration of the manga.
Despite its name, Amateur Wrestling Ken-chan has almost nothing to do with amateur wrestling, and instead mainly focuses on how pathetic Kenpei and the rest of the characters are, and a whole lot of toilet humor involving dumb girls, mighty breasts, and raging boners. Is it funny? Sometimes. Is it so funny that if you see it in the store it’s a must-get? Certainly not, but it’s just a single volume.
Ken-chan, while clearly coming from the same author as DMC, is much less refined compared to the exciting tales of faux-rape by Johannes Krauser II, and is simply less good overall, but that shouldn’t really surprise anyone. In fact, it probably didn’t, as Ken-chan pretty much ends unresolved, implying that it was canceled pretty early on.
On the bellyband of the book is a message from Krauser II, which says, “If I had met a teacher like this, I would not have become the Demon Lord I am!” Is that a positive endorsement or a negative one? Who knows!
Example from the manga below, arguably NSFW. I’ve included it after the cut just in case.
