Forum - View topicNEWS: NTUSA Re-Writes Challenged by Columnist
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Tiresias
Posts: 353 Location: Illinois, USA |
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The link to the Anime on DVD forums doesn't work, it just tells you you can't proceed. Kinda makes you wonder about the validity of this story, especially if it turns out AoD removed the topic because it wasn't true. Of course there could also be the twist that they removed it at the request of NTUSA, who knows.
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Eric
 Posts: 31 Location: Louisiana, USA |
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It must be just you. It's working fine for me.
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HAX
Posts: 8 |
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In addition to this, I looked up his user account and tried to find all posts (figuring the forum link merely was broken). The search turns up no posts by him; I used a cached google page to find his member id, as that post also seems to be deleted now.
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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You might need to be sign on at animeonDVD for the page to work. It works fine for me. Last edited by darkhunter on Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Tiresias
Posts: 353 Location: Illinois, USA |
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I just rechecked it and not only does the link work now, but I also finally got a search to work and found the original post. Not sure what that was all about, but at least I'm not the only one who had at least some kind of problem.
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HAX
Posts: 8 |
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Followup:
The link's been changed, it works, the account I found for him was an alternate old one, presumably closed. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2317 Location: Online Terminal |
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Getting slightly back on topic: Ruh roh. Looks like all is not well in Newtypeville. A little too much "dramatic licensing" is going to make a small dent in NTUSA's credability. Unfortunately, it's not as big as we all probably hope.
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Tiresias
Posts: 353 Location: Illinois, USA |
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The real question should be though, who owns the licensing for this new OVA series? Is it ADV themselves or someone else (I wasn't able to figure out just what the title was to look it up)? If it's an ADV title, this is definitely a bad thing, like cooking the books to make your bottom-line look better or pumping up stocks you own just to dump them at a later time knowing full well at the beginning that they are worthless.
If it happens to belong to someone else, maybe it's more along the lines of trying not to piss off a possible ad purchaser, still not right though. Or maybe what we're looking at here is just an overzealous Editor who didn't agree with the opinion and decided to make a few changes, also still not right. Anyway you look at it though, it's pretty doubtful that NTUSA will respond in any way other than ignoring it. It'll eventually be pushed back in the minds of those who know, and if they don't publicly apologize, then the vast majority of their readers who had no idea about the problem to begin with will still trust the info they read in the pages of NTUSA. Still, as a former Editor-in-Chief of my high school paper, it sickens me to see this happen. I know the hard work people put into their stories (even the 50 word briefs) and to have them changed without permission is like a slap in the face followed with a knee to the goodies. Not a fun feeling at all. If there were any justice in the Journalistic world, there would be an opening pretty soon in the NTUSA Op/Ed department. |
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AnimeHeretic
 Posts: 179 |
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I had already lost respect for NTUSA. I think that editing a writer's comments to make them more favorable is a very low blow.
Of course, unless this news gains wide circulation, I doubt anything will come from it. |
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Kazuki-san
 Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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ADV bashing? Things like this are not limited to NTUSA, it happens across the board in reviews in general, especially zines. Granted, you don't normally hear too much about it, but every once in awhile there will be a story where a writer complains of much the same thing. It also depends on what was agreed to in the Author's guidlines and/or contract. For instance, doing a quick search for Author's guidlines on the net, reveals several in which the magazine reserves the right to re-title, modify, edit, or abridge the article. |
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GATSU
Posts: 15614 |
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Sounds like a former disgruntled employee desperate to make their former employer look bad by claiming that the context of his review was changed, when the message was essentially the same, albeit dumbed down. It's not like he was writing the Great American Novel, so I'm not sure why he's throwing a hissy fit. Anyway, there are plenty more fan writers-myself included-who'd be gunning for his job in a second. So it's his loss.
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sinistertaco
Posts: 96 |
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Does this really surprise anyone?
Newtype USA is a pretty amateurish publication all things considered (e.g. the money and backing of ADV.), with some of the most insanely bad layout I've ever seen in my life (You learn in a layout and design 100 level course that text should not carry into a picture.), not to mention written content that is...shall we say, at best unengaging, at worst borderline incomphrensible. You can put it on glossy paper and make the pages over-sized, but that doesn't really change anything. Anyway, that being the case, I certainley believe its in the realm of possibility that an editor would do something like this. Not to say it did in the specific instance, but it certainley COULD. For those of you who've worked in any print medium and have had the dubious honor of being blessed with a crappy editor, you know what I'm talking about. Combine that with the fact that this publication, which claims to be objective (and may very well be. Who's really to say. But ADV should have known in the beginning that this relationship would eventually cause questions to arise.), is owned by a domestic anime licenensing house, and you've got a textbook basis for a challenge of business and journalistic ethics. In a lot of ways, it does shock me that its taken someone so long to say something like this or bring about an allegation. |
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s_j
Posts: 162 |
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Imho, NTUSA should not even try to have any critical reviews at all. The Japanese original was certainly not a serious journal of review, but a completely unapologetic fluff mag advocate of anime and all things otaku, and there's no shame in this. So if they're going to rewrite every critical review like this, they may as well not bother with reviews completely and save themselves the trouble.
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Kazuki-san
Posts: 2251 Location: Houston, TX |
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It all goes back to what rights NTUSA has to the article in regards to edits, modifications, and alterations. They may be perfectly within their right to do what they allegedly did. And let's make this clear, I'm not calling the guy a liar, but it is just an allegation. As far as business ethics, it really doesn't matter that NTUSA is owned by ADV. It would be one thing if they were pushing ADV titles harder then others, or changing reviews for other companies releases to make them seem less appealing, but this is a 32-page comic, that ADV does not own. If anything, you could say that they were pandering to their advertisers, which I'm not sure if Dark Horse takes out ads in NTUSA or not; but that would be no different from a computer magazine giving a better review of an advertisers product then it perhaps deserves. In any case, as I said earlier, this is not some shocking new thing that has never happened before. It happens all the time. In fact, I had a friend a few years ago that was getting her anthology published. The publisher changed quite a few of the stories up without notifiying her. She was naturally upset and wanted to take legal action to stop it, but the publisher owned rights to Derivative works for her anthology. Did it make her mad? Yes. Could she do anything about it? No.
Jumping the gun a bit are you? How do we get from one author alleging that his work was re-written to them rewriting every critical review they receive? To make this clear before anyone asks, I'm not defending what NTUSA allegedy did as a good thing, although they may have the right to do it. I also do not believe NTUSA is the most kicka** anime zine out their or anything like that. |
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s_j
Posts: 162 |
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Where did I say they re-write all critical reviews? I said *if* they're going to rewrite all critical reviews. (OK, let me re-word that to 'if they are going to start rewriting all cirtical reviews.') This may be the first and only time they have done so. I've also seen less than stellar reviews in NTUSA before. However, I'm not going to doubt this guy much, for all the reasons sinistertaco noted, and given the nature of the original Japanese mag. This was really not a simple grammer fix or a toning down of words. I wonder why they'd bother to go through that trouble? I do purchase NTUSA, but for the same reason I buy the Japanese version...to look at all the pretty pictures. 
Last edited by s_j on Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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