Forum - View topicDiscussing the Socio-Politics of Megalobox 2: Nomad with Yo Moriyama, Katsuhiko Manabe, and Kensaku
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Blackiris_
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What a fantastic interview, both questions and answers are on point and I gained a lot of respect for Moriyama and Manabe. I haven't seen Nomad yet, but I applaud them for tackling difficult social issues head on without averting their eyes. Thank you so much, Lynzee and Kim! Your passionate work is always appreciated.
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tintor2
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No wonder this season feels so different even when shaving the beard. The staff never planned to make a season 2.
The portayals of immigrants sure felt well done. However, Joe's return to his original area does kinda feel like a cop out or not. I mean the whole theme of immigrants seems to be forgottten when spoiler[Chief passes away] and the series returns to its Ashita no Joe roots. At least, I hope they don't keep attached to Ashita no Joe and keep the originality season 2 has. |
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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Not sure how far you've watched, but it's not forgotten at all. spoiler[Mac has an immigrant background, Joe even makes a mental note of it, and he definitely follows the same cultural traditions Chief & co. had]. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1461 |
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I enjoy the hell out of Megalobox, but I still think there were better ways to give the show an "aged" look (filters that simulate film grain, for instance) than downscaling the excellent work by the show's animators, digital painters and background artists to 720x405.
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KitKat1721
 Posts: 974 |
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Don't have too much to add, just wanted to say this was a fantastic interview, and send major props to those involved! Its still crazy to me that one of the best anime sequels this year came from a show that had a completely satisfying ending; one that no one really had any qualms with whatsoever.
I don't think anyone would have thought Megalobox even needed another season, and there's a lot of risk in bringing back a story that's lucky enough to get that sort of ending (just look at the last Code Geass movie). But I'm really thankful we got this one. |
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Ryuji-Dono
 Posts: 1238 |
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What happened here? DId Megalobox 2 just tackle Toxic Masculinity too?
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Guile
Posts: 595 |
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I was surprised when season 2 was announced because I remember Megalobox was one of the worst selling anime of the year when it came out. I guess it did better in the west and they helped finance a second season. That explains a lot so the interview was informative.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 3030 Location: Email for assistance only |
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I'm going to run you (and kakugo complete here) through a process you aren't familiar with in the hopes that it keeps you from "just asking questions" because you don't like the answers and hope to insinuate that it's us Westerners putting words in people's mouths. This interview is conducted entirely in Japanese. The original questions are translated into Japanese and provided to the staff. The staff send their answers in Japanese. Kim translates those answers into English. The English answers are then sent BACK to the Japanese staff and are approved before it is published. This is pretty standard for conducting interviews with Japanese anime staff. For what everyone here is "just asking questions" about to be true, you'd have to assume that the production staff and interview participants are going through this extra step of approvals for funsies and don't bother to look into how their words are being translated. The folks in Japan know that this was written as "toxic masculinity" and if wasn't what they meant, they wouldn't have approved it to be published that way. And no, I'm not going to provide the JP text of the interview for you because you have made up a reason to doubt Kim's professionalism. For one, that wasn't approved by the JP staff involved (which you seem to care about quite a bit) and two, we shouldn't have to humor your baseless theories. Also this stuff about another interview at another anime site has nothing to do with any of the participants in this interview. Go grind your ax elsewhere. |
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Madster
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Came here from Twitter because ANN writers were talking about it.
God forbid anime bring up social commentary or anything without people accusing it of pushing an agenda or something. I can't wait till the anime community's unwillingness to accept politics in anime completely bites them in the butt. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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What an incredible, fascinating interview! Thank you for bringing us viewers so much insight into the director and screenwriters’ creative process—from their inspiration and references of foreign, live action films, to their interest in positively depicting immigrant communities and shining a light on discrimination against them. It does seem clear that immigrants are a major theme of this season—from the music, to the plot about Chief and his community (even if it didn’t last the whole season), to Mac Rosario and his family being immigrants from the same cultural tradition of Chief.
I’m very curious about the creators take on the attitude that fighters should be willing to put their lives on the line for a fight being a bad thing. spoiler[So far, Chief died because of a fight and Liu was paralyzed in a fight, and both outcomes were accepted nobly and graciously; no one blaming their opponents or the fights themselves. It does seem that the characters still believe that the fights are worth life-and -death consequences and they don’t question how badly it can turn out. On the other hand, Mac feels guilty about what he did to Liu (& it’s clear it wasn’t entirely in his control), but not guilty enough not to be gunning for another fight? (albeit, with some encouragement from an unscrupulous individual with his own agenda). ] Back to the process of screenwriting: [quote{A script is the blueprint and sheet music. As the top runner in the creative process, it is of utmost importance for a screenwriter to think about the extent to which the script should assert its own presence.[/quote{ That description is beautiful and insightful |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 3030 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Glad to see they were able to share the interview with JP fans as well.
Folks like what you're referring to above have poisoned the well for translation discussion. As I told another poster privately, it's that kind of amateur armchair 'translating' that has run well-known and liked translators off social media, gotten them death threats, and made it more difficult to discern whether a question is actually in good faith or not. When it comes to my staff, including Kim who has a very visible presence on social media, I'd rather be too defensive than end up directing that same kind of baseless harassment toward her. Going forward; ANN has never to my knowledge published the original language interviews we conduct (JP) and I don't have any intention or providing them for bad faith actors. |
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