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A Dissenting View Of "Spriggan"




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Snomaster1
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Joined: 31 Aug 2011
Posts: 2906
PostPosted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:38 am Reply with quote
Recently,I'd heard that Seven Seas Entertainment is licensing the "Spriggan" manga. Alongside the fact that there's a movie based on it from 1998 and Netflix is making a series from it,I wonder why it's happening. To be perfectly honest,if I were given a choice between watching the most vapid,insipid harem anime Japan has ever produced or watching "Spriggan,"I know which I'd watch. It would be the harem anime.
For me,it would be no contest. I'd rather watch that than one second of either the "Spriggan" movie or the Netflix series. Furthermore,I'd rather read the worst that DC and Marvel have produced than read the manga. Now,there are those who wonder why I feel this way. Soon,you'll know why.

I've been watching anime for many years now and a lot of it I've enjoyed,but there are anime I haven't watched for a variety of reasons. Either they're too bloody or contains things that are well beyond my tolerance. I'm also a patriotic individual and I don't take kindly to stuff that's anti-American. The main reason I don't like "Spriggan" is precisely this reason,it's anti-Americanism.
There's an old saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover." On the surface,the "Spriggan" franchise is a rollicking action-adventure show. The show's star,Yu Ominae,is a high school student but he also works for ARCAM,a corporation charged with collecting ancient artifacts from a long-lost civilization. It's pretty similar to Indiana Jones. I think that's why people are so excited for it. Unfortunately,what lies underneath the surface is what a lot of people don't seem to want to get.

Nearly every American character in this franchise is little more than a horrid villain. The manga and anime see America as little more than a country filled with human scum. That's nothing I want to see in any manga and anime I want to read or watch. I know that there's plenty of stuff like that and I've seen more than my fair share of anime that has those sort of portrayals. This sort of thing would look no different if it were from North Korea,Saudi Arabia,or Iran and I don't really have any desire to see anything from those countries.
But,if you think that the anti-Americanism of this franchise is how bad it can get,than you don't know the half of it. In one of the manga's most controversial arcs,it has a clone of Adolf Hitler that's a good guy. If that doesn't repel you from this,than you're made of sterner stuff than me. Here's what's often lost in all of this. While Japan doesn't have a significant Jewish community,America does. And,I sincerely doubt that any Jewish-American anime or manga fan would ever want to see anything like that.

I'd like for you to imagine this. You have a friend who's Jewish who's also an anime and manga fan and he or she hears about this and then finds out a little more about this thing. How do they think they're going to feel if they see something as repulsive as that? Especially if they have family members or friends who survived the Holocaust. I know that there aren't too many of those people still around but imagine how those people are going to feel about something like that.
One person who's said little on this is ANN's own Rebecca Silverman. She once wrote a moving piece on this site about what her family went through during World War II. I doubt she'd be okay with something like that. In fact,when Viz had the "Spriggan" manga,it didn't exactly finish the Third Reich arc and I can imagine that there were people who were Jewish who were also working for them that weren't exactly thrilled to see that.
Knowing all of this,the question must be asked. Why is this franchise being revived? There's little to no reason why people should be so excited about this. It's one of the most vile anime and manga that's ever been created. I know that there are people who want to read this manga or watch the Netflix series. This is how I feel about the franchise. If you want to watch or read it,that's up to you. Personally,I don't like this franchise but that's just how I feel about it. You might feel differently. I just wanted to let people know why I want nothing to do with this franchise. There are worse things out there,but I have little desire to see those,either.
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