Forum - View topicTales Of The Industry - Less Fanboying Is More
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deathfromabove1993
Posts: 120 Location: Chicago, IL |
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Wow, what a great story. I can see why anime companies back then were reluctant to hire people that knew about the product. But I'm glad you didn't back down because of that e-mail. As always, I look forward to reading more stories on this column.
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4615 |
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I suppose I can see why Tim would have said to not display the email since Justin's continued presence would have been enough to show whoever sent it that it didn't work without coming off as antagonistic.
From the sounds of it, there was a tricky balancing act to how useful big-time fans were since being a fan can make people lose focus, but at the same time, people don't try too hard when it's "just a job." Also, I'd say it was clever to use hentai as the sample for the job applications. Far better to be up front about what the person would be working on than have them quit after deciding they can't/won't work on half of the company's product. It's kind of crazy to think people would go out of their way and risk what would be considered by many to be a dream job when there was such little reward offered, but people make poor decisions all the time. |
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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That's a good point: Does a company wants to hire the enthusiasts, who while they work with passion and motivation, they might burn a few bridges (in this case, taking material to a fansub group).
Or hire those who work because it's available and not because they're passionate about it. They might lack motivation and/or knowledge about their targeted audience and demographics, but because they're such a "cold existence", the odds of them sabotaging the company are lower. Good story. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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I don't think that really a question of enthusiasm but of a basic level of professionalism and common sense. Case in point; Justin didn't do anything like this. Is having people who didn't care about what they were doing why CPM tried to market the quirky sitcom Patlabor as a rip-roaring action series? |
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Videogamep
 Posts: 564 Location: CA |
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Why did CPM license that much hentai anyway? I always hear about how much hentai they licensed and released but I can't imagine it sold that well compared to non-hentai. Was it just cheaper? |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24130 |
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Man, there hasn't been a boring "Tales of the Industry" column yet! Kudos to Justin for admitting to his flaws instead of painting a "it was everybody else's fault I wasn't liked!" picture.
Can't wait for all the stories about the hookers and coke that I just KNOW are coming. 
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Speaking as someone who hires fans constantly, it all boils down to work ethic and that's unique to each person, regardless of fan enthusiasm. If you know everything there is to know about anime but can't hit deadlines and are bad at your job it doesn't matter, and superfans are not intrinsically better employees or harder workers than folks who aren't. I'll take a hard worker who's willing to learn what he needs to know about anime over a superfan who doesn't do his or her job right any day of the week. One of those is an easy problem to fix, the other one is very difficult to overcome barring a radical change in the person's attitude toward work. |
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bemused Bohemian
Posts: 404 Location: central Mizzou (Moral Oralville) |
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I didn't work in the anime field years ago but I did CAD work for a number of years with an established global aluminum framing manufacturer that had a large office staff with 3 separate departments sharing 1 large space. Your experiences in the corporate fishbowl mimic what I endured also.
Before graduation from a tech school I was told by 1 of my college professors who actually worked industry versus being a career academic about CYA or CYB. He stressed the importance that being liked by your mentors, as crazy as it sounds, will weigh more heavily determining an individual's security than any benchmark being a gifted, professional knowledge worker. I chose not to believe him foolishly thinking devotion and merit would prevail over superstitions and inbreeding. I quickly learned calls to the office equated with demerits or concerns about not much rather than positivity generation for good work submission. Long story shortened: outbound interview shortly before next career launch revealed 3 write-ups in my file: 1) excessive obsession with Big Red flavored gum during lunch breaks (stress reliever), 2) arrived to work 1 minute late 1 time (never mind excessive 80-hr week work loads on salary pay), 3) complaint by co-worker of 1 incident of inappropo sense of wry wit: I posted on my office cubicle wall an alternative newspaper cartoon rendering of a preacher in Eskimo garb standing on an ice floe with Bible and microphone in hand preaching to the 1 whale which happened to be in close proximity in open water feeding. The caption read "Reverend Jones answering the call to save the whales". The third indictment didn't arise from the religious co-workers in my department (believe it or not, folks in northwest Arkansas do possess benign senses of humor...they thought it was funny). It came from a co-worker from a different department. My desk was located along the main plant corridor. Corporate life....sure don't miss it. PS: if this submission doesn't belong here by all means blow it out, Justin or Zac. |
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Hameyadea
Posts: 3679 |
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Forgot to add to my previous post that I, personally, don't think that there's any truth to the view I presented. I tried to look at it from a business perspective in a market relatively-unknown, and the company isn't sure on the behavior of the fans (they have been "burned" by a Sandler, so the company's worries, from its point-of-view, aren't unfounded)
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Emerging companies in the early days couldn't get long-form classic series, they had to get one-offs, limited series and features, usually cheap OVA's that the licensors were happy to get rid of. And back in the 90's day, most of the one-off non-series OAV's were hentai or adaptations of hentai manga--I remember my frustration waiting for A.D. Vision to finally release a clean series outside of the comic-store hentai niche, and telling them in their fan comments, "Get yourself one good series, like AnimEigo and Streamline did!" |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2902 |
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a company will put more attention to it's past history than anything else, like company A only hiring graduates froma certain college because graduates from other places are either nto good enough or quit the work, or company B not hiring females because they quit very fast. you could also argue that something is wrong with company C that makes it so only males from a certain college don't quit.spoiler[company A, B and C are the same company]
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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I don't know how things go NOW, but I can say that at least 10 years ago "hentai" was a solid seller. If nothing else, I can say that the video store I helped at rented ADV hentai more often than ANY other anime and had several of them taken also. |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Hmm, I never even thought about how back then, anime fans were largely way too immature to take their jobs seriously. It must go hand-in-hand with how anime fans back then had a grudge against the localization business, and I can imagine them working at Central Park Media and considering themselves an inside agent helping to bring down The Man while talking what they want from him.
For that matter, thast would mean the people who actually bought things from Central Park Media at that time must have been villified by some other anime fans too. I remember the leader of my anime club in high school looked down on anyone who bought any anime from a western company (though he was also the type of person who refused to call the Pokémon TV show an "anime," as to him it was merely a "cartoon"). I would be concerned about those alpha-males mentioned in the article though. I've met plenty of rank-and-file alpha-males (and alpha-females) at work; almost all of them desperately want promotions, and they will either throw their weight around or try to show off to their superiors rather than actually doing their job. And once they ARE promoted, they'll work immediately towards climbing the next rank while treating the people below them like slaves. Or, in at least one case I can recall, he was found out and fired, and he spent his entire last day handing out demerits to everyone under him he could remember to try to take as many people out with him as he could. I can only hope that my experiences are atypical of alpha-males.
Yeah, looking at it nowadays with the anime fandom having matured considerably, it would have been an incredibly stupid thing to do. But you must keep in mind that really dedicated fans can and still do some incredibly stupid things. You just have to go visit any convention aimed at fans to see.
Another downside is that they'll likely produce suboptimal material with many mistakes and a rushed schedule just to get them over with. I suppose it ultimately comes down to how much each worker values his or her job and how seriously he or she takes it. We've all worked in jobs we disliked, and I know that's no reason to not give it my all. Simultaneious respect from your co-workers, superiors, and clients feels good. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 3028 Location: Email for assistance only |
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This isn't a "back then" thing. It isn't even necessarily an "anime fan" thing, although there are certain aspects of the fandom that can draw more of that type in. What I've learned from working in a variety of different office jobs, including legal and in a non-anime newsroom is that there are plenty of people who will do the bare minimum needed in a work setting. The moment they realize that can not do something, or let some work expectation slide without it getting noticed, they'll stop doing it or rely on the overzealous types to pick up their slack. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Well, I was actually referring to the incident mentioned in the article where an anime fan was hired and was then caught stealing tapes to show off to his friends. He either didn't understand that those tapes were company property, or he resented working there and felt justified in doing so, and either way, that's immature.
I don't know how common or rare these incidents have been in anime localization, however. |
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