Forum - View topicINTEREST: Love Live! Superstar!! Staff Apologizes for Referencing Real-Life Café Without 'Prior Cons
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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For practical purposes now its evident that its really difficult to reference anything outside a shows own creative content. In this case it's a real life cafe, other examples are product logos, and like with the issue of Usada Pekora, characters from other properties. Gone are the days when you could just casually pop those kinds of things in your show and no one would bat an eye.
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harminia
 Posts: 2045 Location: australia |
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Those are all completely different issues. Pekora was the anime studio not asking permission to use the character's likeness. Product logos has always been an issue in all media everywhere, that's why things like WcDonalds exists. This is a case of the studio asking to use the likeness of the cafe, the cafe ("tentatively") agreeing, and then a bunch of love livers going to the cafe to take photos and probably ask the staff to pose or tell them to get out of the way of the photo when the staff as just doing their job. Love Live fans are pretty insane when it comes to doing anime location pilgrimages. This article writes about how the Love Live team have had to ask fans to not trespass on private property. People have literally been climbing over school gates or walking in people's yards to take photos. Plenty of anime can have references, they just have to play it safe. Sometimes they fly too close to the sun (like with Pekora, or like Osomatsu-san did a few times), but general parodies won't cause many issues. |
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ErikaD.D
Posts: 660 |
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So referencing is illegal in Japan?
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omoikane
Posts: 494 |
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Anime often make references of real life locations, for a long time now. It's really just how obsessives/compulsive the fans are, and managing it, plus the nature of the location that's being referenced. You can refer to well-known tourist destinations like Mt. Fuji or Enoshima and nobody in Japan would really bat an eye, since they were already destinations. If you point out a fancy cafe in the middle of nowhere, for a popular otaku-oriented show, that's something else.
That said, in Superstar's case it should be something Bandai Namco takes more into account before doing, someone probably dropped the ball somewhere. And yes, anime can use exact brands--but making exact references cause additional work/trouble for the production, and unless it's important to the production to make an exact reference, a Wcdonald or whatever is probably the best way to go. Typically, exact brands in anime is likely a paid product placement or sponsors/committee members. |
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harminia
Posts: 2045 Location: australia |
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Explicit referencing without permission is for brands and some locations as you will need to pay for the likeness/logo (so just like anything you need to pay for, using it without paying is stealing and thus illegal). Vague referencing is not so long as you, like I said before, be careful and don't fly too close to the sun. There are certain brands you don't really want to mess with too much as they will go down hard on you depending on what sort of reference it is, but for the most part are ok. Most anime can get by with sticking a black bar over a characters eyes, or censoring a name with O (i.e. DoOemon)/bleep. As omoikane said, and I briefly touched on in my earlier post, referencing brands can be more difficult as you need to get permission to have a specific brand in your show and it is usually a lot of work and money. If a show sponsors your anime, you can reference as much as you want. i.e. I believe Super Cub is sponsored by Honda. Here is a quote from Makoto Shinkai about how he managed to get McDonalds in his movie:
But as mentioned before, this wasn't a reference problem. This was two issues: 1. Sunrise dropping the ball by not following up with the cafe like they said they were going to, and assuming the Love Livers could be decent respectful people. 2. The Love Livers not being decent respectful people and instead harassing and bothering people, as they have done many times in the past. |
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TheMeepiestMorp
 Posts: 4 Location: Minnesota |
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I do research on anime tourism and it’s really fun seeing the lengths otakus go to when on anime pilgrimages. Have a popular anime feature one single scene in the most remote location in Japan and you can guarantee otakus will descend upon it in the thousands to take a single photo regardless of how difficult it is to get there. Usually ends up really pissing off a lot of local residents and changes the culture (and sometimes history) of a lot of these small places, sadly.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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omiya
 Posts: 1849 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Pardon the full quote, but apart from the no trespassing signs at the gates of the high school featured in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and the Love Live related issues previously covered on ANN, can you provide some examples? 
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TheMeepiestMorp
Posts: 4 Location: Minnesota |
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Sure thing! I think one of my favorite examples to reference is the Bonbori Festival in Yuwaku from Hanasaku Iroha. [url] https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-feature/2017/10/28-1/hanasaku-iroha-bonbori-festival-report-a-fictional-event-becomes-real-life-tradition[/url] They reinvented their small town with a traditional festival that didn’t exist. It gets their small area put back on the map, so the city doesn’t mind or put out notices against tourists taking photos. When it comes to complaints, it’s rather difficult to find exact complaints from locals in studies and journalism because the field is still super super new and there are very few field studies that have been done outside of Lucky Star and Your Name where locals are interviewed (part of why I’m trying to study it as a grad student). I know of situations like at Shirakawa-Hachiman Shrine in Shirakawa-go from Higurashi with tourists making art of murder happy girls on votive tablets which then scares others and staff of the Hida Library in Your Name getting frustrated with tourists for constantly taking photos of the inside of the library without asking for permission prior. Sorry, I know these are largely anecdotal experiences at this point, but I hope this helps! |
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harminia
Posts: 2045 Location: australia |
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Sure, but that's been an issue for years all over the world, not just a recent issue that's Japan exclusive. Staff always have to consider "is this a good idea" when referencing anything, and I believe there are places from American/other Western films etc that became pilgrimage spots for fans. It can go either way; sometimes the locations are grateful for it and appreciate it because they suddenly get a steady flow of tourist money, so they can handle a couple of uncouth fans. Some places hate it because they're pains in the ass to deal with. For the committee making the show itself, so long as they did the right things (got permission, paid whatever fees were required, did a generic message telling fans not to harass or inconvenience people if they visit), what happens next is out of their hands. They can't control what people do, only advise people not to. ____ @TheMeepiestMorp: that study sounds really interesting! Good luck with it! |
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