Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Taken to Task
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14886 |
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About 2nd-hand/used purchases: the effect is indirect. Sure, the money may not go directly to the anime creators, but some of the money goes back to the initial purchaser, who can use that money to purchase more new anime. If that happens, then some of the money trickles back to Japan.
Now, about controversial social issues in Japan: Japanese media has never really been good at dealing with that and avoid it like the plague - they don't want to rock the boat, be the nail that sticks out, disturb the wa (Japanese harmony). There's really not that many J-shows that deal with social issues. If you watch anime, you wouldn't know much social issues in Japan - heck, you may even think that Japan does not have social issues. You wouldn't know that Japan has an increasing homeless issue (save for Tokyo Godfathers), the only industrialized nation with growing STDs, an anti-immigrant policy (except GitS:SAC), a stagnant economy going on 2 decades of deflation, etc. Heck, they don't even do much social satire neither like South Park. It's just not in their blood. Anyways, as for the Question of the Week ("pick your favorite 80's or 90's pop-cultural relic that you'd like to see reissued as anime series")........... um......... Charles in Charge? 
Last edited by enurtsol on Fri Mar 04, 2011 2:15 am; edited 3 times in total |
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Saturn
 Posts: 513 |
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Wouldn't it actually be *better* if more anime (and pop culture in general) addressed the tough themes? Sure, it probably wouldn't sell, but putting something under the microscope of mass media is a good way to introduce people to a problem they might not have thought of before. Sometimes it's just soapboxing (or as tvtropes would put it, anvil dropping), but as they say... some anvils need to be dropped, even if it hurts when it lands. If Miyazaki did a film about the evils of killing dolphins, it would certainly get the attention of those people denying that it's a problem.
Of course, it would probably ruin his career, too. Anyway, it's not really hypocritical if they DON'T address them. But it wouldn't really be a bad thing if they did. to the person purchasing anime secondhand: your Half Priced Books must be a lot better than mine, because the prices at mine are laughable compared to what used anime sells for on Amazon 
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ustillworkinonthatnovel
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is true. I would also like to add, that you are stimulating the industry by buying used, because you are giving anime dvds value. For example: If I buy a new dvd and know that I could re-sell it if I don't like it, the re-sell, is in itself an incentive for me to buy it. If I don't think I can re-sell it, I may not risk buying it at all. The good people who buy used dvds are just as helpful to the anime community as anyone else. |
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Racheldoublemm
 Posts: 112 Location: San Francisco |
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I still manage to run in to the Second Hand Buying Guilt when it comes to anime. I have learned, though, that for younger audiences it is better to buy cheap than not buy at all. It's a thing you can grow into. I remember when I got to buy my first release at full price; I was proud and felt that I directly aided in sales. There's no way I would have felt that when I was 15. Plus when you're young, the releases available to you are at retail price, IE not in a high school kid's budget. I remember buying Ah My Goddess for $36 and I still regret that purchase (enjoyment of it aside). Any kid, or for that matter person, getting in to anime will grow in to the idea of spending what they do on their hobby. I think the fact the some kids actually have the concern for their support for the industry is quite noble. That's my jumble view, anyway.
80's cartoon....... I honestly wouldn't care what shape or form this took, but I want to see an Johnny Quest anything. I'd love a live action hollywood production of the classic just as much as I would love an anime adaptation. I'd even take a Bollywood Musical. That show had so many elements and down right odd moments in it that any version would be pretty difficult to screw up. I don't know if Cheetara would translate well to an anime. I remember her being a strong feminist icon to me. It's been a decade since I've seen it though. My view of her might be skewed. Can't wait to see Snarf, though. I wonder if he'll be more or less annoying. |
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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@ ustillworkinonthatnovel:
I may be misreading your post (and hey, it's the internet, it can happen), but if I am reading it correctly, then I don't think it's as helpful as you make it sound. I mean, yeah, the initial purchaser could earn money by selling a DVD he/she already bought to someone else. But what if that person doesn't use the money to even buy more new anime DVDs? And even if he/she did buy a new anime DVD, it wouldn't be the same exact one, right, since that buyer wouldn't really double dip? So it's not as if more units of a certain anime title on DVD are being bought, it's just that one title being indirectly bought while the original purchaser would probably buy a different title and do the same thing by having other people buy it indirectly. I think what anime companies would prefer more than anything else is if they somehow had more potential consumers instead of just the same 5,000 ones buying more of their products, which isn't to say the latter is a bad thing. And when advertisement of these companies and their shows and DVDs are very limited beyond the internet, anime stores, anime mangazines, and conventions and with few shows run on TV these days, that's really difficult to do. If someone wanted to support the industry but doesn't always have the income to buy anime, then I would personally recommend informing other people who don't know much about anime certain shows that may meet that person's tastes and letting them know it can be bought on DVD whether it be on Rightstuf, Amazon, or a Best Buy store. And something tells me to a lot of people that sounds risky since you can't fully guarantee they'll feel like buying whatever anime you recommend. But I think if people worry too much about whteher taking a risk is really worth it, then it would be guaranteed that these companies won't be able to expand past the same 5,000 consumers. |
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Wrathful
 Posts: 372 |
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It would be quite interesting indeed if anime indeed explores the controversial issues that affects globally. I mean Miyazaki's Animes are no stranger to tackling the issues of man vs nature and I can think of few other anime that tried to make a plot about social issues or adding subtle arguments to the global problems behind the cute charming story and characters.
From the animes I've seen, they make better narrative about the importance of relationship and family than goddamn family movies except Disney movies without making it unnatural and pretentious. I definitely think the anime has more potential of telling better stories in any themes. For now I can only think of handful of studios that are willing to experiment while the rest is making fanservice anime like Freezing. I mean it's quite obvious why most studios aren't willing to risk especially with recent financial recession. That being said, if there's 80's and 90's old school cartoons I'd like to see would be Felix the Cat which I'm not sure when it's made and Detective Gadget. If I think about them, especially the Detective Gadget had the similarity to anime. It's just from what I remember, that's how I see. |
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Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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My take on this is that any opinion Ben Stein supports is automatically incorrect. My entire world view is derived from this one axiom. |
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Orange Hollow
 Posts: 68 Location: Krasnoyarsk, Russia |
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I don't know who Ben Stein is, but I know that weather is not getting any warmer, so at least we should be talking about "climate change". I'm sorry, but it's hard to believe in "global warming" when you freezing your ass in -30C (-22F) temperature for 2 months straight. (Sorry for offtopic, I agree anime should not discuss such issues) Last edited by Orange Hollow on Fri Mar 04, 2011 3:25 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Maigraith
Posts: 80 |
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I'm a little confused about the whole environmental question. Why is it the job/concern of those directors to focus on dolphin kills? They aren't being hypocritical by not creating a movie that has the message "don't kill dolphins", if they don't want to make a movie of it that's there business. It's like calling James Cameron a hypocrite for making a movie with environmental stuff in it but he didn't include dumping chemicals into lakes/rivers, it's ridiculous.
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4626 |
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The Answerfan question about spending habits definitely got me to thinking about my own spending. I too started in high school only buying a few discs at a time, and then spent a lot more as anime got cheaper and I had steady employment in college.
However, the shift away from TV and going toward streaming has altered my purchases. I buy fewer DVDs now than I used to because the R1 companies decided that the English dubs should be reserved as a premium for purchase. I've tried multiple times to watch shows in Japanese, but I just don't enjoy them as much, and I have a hard time motivating myself to watch a 2 to 4 episode English sample, let alone decide if a show warrants a purchase from that sample. But, I still want to support the industry, so the money that would have gone to discs has gone towards figures from shows that I like. Oh well, Funimation's loss is Kotobukiya's gain, I guess.
The question wasn't trying to say that it is their job, so much as it was wondering why such things don't come up more often. |
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Sailor S
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It's Inspector Gadget, unless there is some show that I've never heard of called Detective Gadget.
I don't see it as a problem, so Miyazaki can make all the movies he wants about it and I'll still be wondering why my dolphin safe tuna doesn't taste as good as it did when dolphins were getting caught in the nets. I've seen video of the dolphin hunts, doesn't bother me in the least, so it's not a problem. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4791 |
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Brian bringing up the Ainu in his one response reminded me of the one Samurai Champloo two-parter that's centered around a man of Ainu race; I believe it even featured an inset song by a noted Ainu singer. I wonder if that episode made any sort of splash in Japan when it aired, given the seeming usual Japanese attitude toward such controversial topics.
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enurtsol
Posts: 14886 |
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Or this Gadget, but she's a Rescue Ranger.
Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke has "Ainu." 
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1848 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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I'd like a DVD release of The Mighty Orbots. Remake will do in a pinch.
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maus
 Posts: 84 Location: The Netherlands |
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A remake of M.A.S.K. or Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors would be really neat!
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