Forum - View topicIntroducing Anime Now
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ANIME NOW!
Posts: 3 |
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Hey Guys,
This is Richard Eisenbeis, I'm the Managing Editor over at Anime Now! and I'd just like to clear one thing up. I think there seems to be some confusion about what the words "anime advocacy" mean. Indeed, Anime Now! is a project of Anime Consortium Japan, a company whose shareholders are made up of various anime production companies and other organizations that want to spread the good things about Japan across the world. These companies, however, have no direct say in any way about how Anime Now! is run. In fact, no one on the business side has any say in our content--we keep editorial and business sides as separate as possible. To put it another way, every piece of content on the site goes through me and me alone. So how do I decide what content goes up on the site? When it comes down to it, every article on the site (other than the occasional explainer or news item) is an answer to one single question: "What do you love about anime?" For Sarah, it's the voice actors. She tries to make every interview with them special and show something about the actors that you might not have known before. For Renato, its the history of anime and the art of animation that are his passion. So what do we mean by "anime advocacy"? Simply this: there are many sites dedicated to tearing apart anime, saying what's wrong with it--and don't get me wrong, there are valid critiques in every medium of art anime included. But we want to showcase the good in anime: the stories, characters, and behind the scenes aspects that make us enjoy watching it. We are not PR, regurgitating press releases or saying what PR teams want us to say. We only write what we truly believe and feel--anything less would be dishonest and unfair to you, our audience. But if you disregard everything I have said here, I beg of you one thing: don't doubt our love of anime. We're not soulless minions out to make a quick buck (because, let me tell you, this would not be the way to do it). We simply love anime and we want the rest of the world to love it as much as we do. In my opinion, these articles are the work that best represents what Anime Now! is: Our guide of every TV anime and film of the season (updated daily) A post to explain the confusing watch order of Danganronpa 3 Our interview with a A piece about seeing how the first few episodes of Izetta's World War II stacks up to the real thing Why Ghost in the Shell‘s Major is so different between the movies, manga, and TV anime--straight from the director's mouth If you enjoy these, I hope you'll give us a chance. Oh and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them here or through twitter or mail. Last edited by ANIME NOW! on Fri Nov 25, 2016 10:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1119 Location: Puget Sound |
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Pretty much this. I clicked on a few over the last couple of weeks, and their content is... not impressive. |
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Angel M Cazares
 Posts: 5494 Location: Iscandar |
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If this partnership with Anime Now is also about generating revenue, I rather see ANN implement the rumored subscription model. |
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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SNaGem
Posts: 41 |
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Personally not a fan of Richard Eisenbeis's writing/analysis, didn't like any of his work on Kotaku (also... Kotaku). His really high-handed way of declaring SAO better than Bebop rubbed me the wrong way. Him aside, kinda annoys me that their clickbaity stuff is populating ANN in some form since even news reports have commentary on them, which really bothers me. At least on ANN, if I want to avoid commentary altogether, I can. At Anime Now, I get bad commentary in everything. Guess that's the nature of the beast, but suffice to say, I tried and am not a fan.
Them's the way the cookie crumbles, I guess. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3768 |
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^I haven't been able to independently verify that he specifically said SAO was better than Bebop, but considering that his review of SAO was more positive that his review of Bebop it certainly is possible.
After reading the selection of articles Mr. Eisenbeis highlighted, I can't say my first impression has changed with regard to their not piquing my interest. Perhaps they aren't merely barely disguised advertisements but I can't say I find any of it overly compelling personally. At the very least, I wish them good luck in their venture. |
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CorneredAngel
 Posts: 854 Location: New York, NY |
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The one question in all of this is - who gets to decide what is Anime Now's daily "best article" that gets shared? Their editors? ANN's? Is it the article that's getting the most views on their end? The one they'd *like* to get the most views, etc...
Having said that, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I definitely think there is very much a space out there for the kind of long-form "magazine-type" writing (think New York Magazine and Atlantic and such, not Anime Insider) on anime/manga that Anime Now provides. And, my experience working with a couple of their writers has given me very high opinions of them. So, at least for now, hey, everybody wins, presumably ANN gets a bit more revenue that they can use to manage the site and continue providing content, and we get an extra article to look through without having to go to another site. |
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SNaGem
Posts: 41 |
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Apologies, I don't know if he said it explicitly. More of a relative inference, but not one hard to draw. Looking at his SAO reviews, he praises them profusely, (which is fine, everyone has their own opinion and while I disagree at how SAO is a "smart anime" I respect everyone's), but he live tweeted Cowboy Bebop and criticized it very high-handedly, which rubbed me the wrong way. He also claimed everything that wasn't Spike's arc was filler, IIRC, which is... kinda wrong. I just think his analysis is typically off-base, even on the shows we both like, and cited those two examples since those were the ones that immediately came to mind. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Eh, I have read a couple of decent things over there. It's not all bad. I'll read any interviews that are posted, at least. Would rather not have it show up in the ANN feed, but it's not super hard to ignore either. *shrug*
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Deynard
Posts: 166 |
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Hey Richard, could you tell me if there is a way to turn off news on ANN with links to Anime Now articles? I really don't care about it.
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 24092 |
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I'll probably check out Anime Now in more detail at some point. Just judging by the links that Richard Eisenbeis provided, there definitely seems like content I'd be interested in. I like the idea of a site that is devoted to discussing anime in a positive light. I wish the site well. Frankly, anything that may contribute to anime gaining a wider audience is fine by me. As an anime consumer, I certainly don't benefit if my hobby gets less popular, either in terms of the number of titles made and licensed, or with respect to the cost of products.
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TD912
 Posts: 274 |
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I've clicked to read a couple articles on that site, and I don't think the content is nearly as bad as the other readers on here have been suggesting. While ANN mainly shows the latest anime news, Anime-Now seems to go into detail on explaining much of the culture behind the shows in various interest articles. I honestly enjoyed reading some of them, such as how the actual town of Oarai is benefiting from the Girls und Panzer series.
I think they complement ANN quite well. Since they're mainly "interest" articles they might not have the same style of writing as a typical bland news article, but it's nowhere near being the "clickbait" trash found elsewhere. I think some people here are judging them too harshly just because certain people might be involved with the site. |
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ANIME NOW!
Posts: 3 |
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This is a good question and an important one. The answer is that I (Richard) get to decide which article gets shared. Each day I look at our stories and balance several different issues to try and find "the best." *Do I personally find it interesting? *Do I think ANN readers will find it interesting? *Is it well written with a well made point? *Has ANN already talked about the topic--and if so would our article add to the conversation? Sometimes, the choice is easy: exclusive interviews are something many would like to read. But sometimes I'll pick something that showcases something cool about a show that has remained hidden from mainstream anime fans--even though I know it won't get too many hits. It all depends on the articles that go up each day.
Can't help you there. Doing that would be on the ANN side of things. So you'd need to ask them. Sorry!
Indeed, I have never made a direct comparison between the two. They're so very different it'd be like comparing apples and... I don't know, watermelons? So while both are anime, I can't really see enough common points between them to make a comparison. I love Sword Art Online, especially the first 13 episodes. I once called those 13 episodes the "Smartest Anime I've Seen in Years"--which was 100% truth at the time I had watched it. The second arc? Well, let's just say I have never referred to that a "being smart" .
As for Bebop, keep in mind tweets are very short by nature and I was just posting the things I thought at the spur of the moment. I went on after that to give a lengthy review (which never claimed everything that wasn't Spike's arc was filler). If you've never read it, maybe you'll find it interesting to see the view of someone immersed in anime who has no nostalgia for the show. But, if nothing else, I invite you to read the closing paragraph for my final thoughts on it.
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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This whole Anime Now thing seems super problematic to me. I've read the forum comment by their editor trying to justify their site. One can split hairs over who is directly calling the shots. I don't see anyone denying two key things though: 1) This is directly funded by Anime Consortium Japan. 2) This is designed to provide purely positive coverage of their products. In my view, that makes this advertising in everything but name. Sure, you can claim their editorial content is real, high quality material and not just fluff and you can claim it is sincerely produced despite their funding and purpose. All that may be true. But there is no getting around that a massive conflict of interest still exists. I mean, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on journalistic procedure but I do know a thing or two about conflict of interest and one of the most basic rules is that it doesn't matter whether it actually influences you. The mere potential conflict is a problem. You can't just say "Don't worry guys! You can totally trust us to be fair despite the conflict!" which is exactly what their Managing Editor seems to be doing. This is something that needs to be acknowledged. And granted, they're not strictly hiding any of this. But it isn't stated regularly either. I don't mind the ANN posts tagged as ads precisely because they are tagged as such. There is no such tag or acknowledgement though for these Anime Now posts either on ANN or in the posts they link to.
Honestly too, I take issue with the basic premise here as well. The explicitly stated assumption underlying Anime Now's approach is that there are just too many sites dedicated to "tearing anime apart". Unless there are sites out there that literally exist to tell people that anime is bad and shouldn't be watched, I can only interpret this as a rather pejorative way of saying that most anime sites out there engage in actual criticism. Even if you acknowledge that there are some "valid criticisms" (which to be fair, they do) this is still based on an extremely dubious view that the critical process is inherently negative. That's simply never been true. Actually engaging in the critical process can be negative (if a show is bad) and it can be positive (if a show is good). In fact, I would argue that this is precisely *why* true criticism ultimately does more to "advocate" for anime than mindless cheerleading ever could. Truly championing the ways in which anime is great is only possible because one also acknowledges the ways in which it is not. Of course, I'll grant that this last point is not strictly an ethical issue in itself. Plenty of fans subscribe to this same silly belief. But to see the editor of the site espouse such an anti-critical notion does little for his credibility. Anyway, that's my stance. I've been a long time reader of ANN and I get that this has probably been considered in detail and I'm not going to radically change ANN's decision here. I know that they're not going to just suddenly reverse course on a major partnership. I hope ANN will give further consideration to how they present Anime Now links on the site though. |
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Touma
 Posts: 2651 Location: Colorado, USA |
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Sounds good to me. I will definitely be checking the Anime Now site. So far though I have not seen any links to Anime Now on the front page, which I do not visit often, or sidebar. But I do have the URL of the site and the links here in the forum. |
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