Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! [2007-06-22]
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Merciful Evans
Posts: 18 |
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Interesting rant.
I don't disagree that Japan has a lot of strange ideas about Christianity or Catholicism, but I think it's unfair to point at Hellsing and single out just Japan for it's representations of Catholicism; I can see how it might be offensive, and I'm not saying Japan isn't responsible, but isn't it limiting to address the rant as though no American media, among other things, ever portrayed nuns as other than chaste? Again, anime and manga have a particular tendency to show poor research into Christianity, true, but they're far from alone. |
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Deltakiral
 Posts: 3338 Location: Glendora, CA (Avatar Hei from Darker than BLACK) |
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Damn I really want to meet the person in the flake of the week and give him/her a good shake. As for the VA question I wish that there were more studios that could do the dub process so it didn't feel like we always got the same group of people. But the dub that I listen to most of the time they are very well done so I can't complain. Although listening to Black Lagoon I can't help but hear Quatte and Zechs in the Black Lagoon company.
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britannicamoore
 Posts: 2618 Location: Out. |
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The fanart question was one i had myself. How was it ok for people to draw anime chracters and sell them. Regardless of it being something they drew- the concept wasn't their idea and shouldn't they too like the AMV makers get kicked off youtube?
...I mean devinart. 
For me personally on the subject of naruto fans- I too have the problem of disliking the new kids on the block. I get annoyed when I pass by Hot Topic, walk in Borders, or walk in the mall and see ten kids in full Naruto gear- heabands shining in the lights, kunai in their pockets, and goth clothes a blazing. Maybe I get mad because they have more courage than me. or for the fact that maybe when I wore anime shirts I got flak from every person in my school for being an oreo. I understand why the person asked about the dub actors- it seems like every ADV dvd has Chris Patton on it somewhere. (not that thats a bad thing- lots of Chris love here!) It reminds me of when I heard Steven Blum on that DQ commercial. As for being social to everyone- I had a guy like that in my "crew of anime fans" (more like 3 people) he was annoying, into yaoi, and wanted to do all of the girls in the group because we tolerated him. (which was really irking because he kept talking about all the guys in the school that their "ring finger knows" and such) and after awhile I made it clear that he shouldn't hang out with us. He however never listened and just happened to show up even when we thought we ditched him. I see that our peace and harmony of the past week is going to probably be shattered by this. Religion is a big issue. I think with Chrono Crusade that the story was spoiler[ good and evil will always exist- which is why aion was alive at the end of the seris. Good sometimes triumph over evil- other times it doesn't- its always going to be a battle forever.] But you only catch that if you manage to get through the show. If not- you see a nun with a gun and a demon and it looks horrible. This reminds me- the other day when I was looking at the Meet ANN thread- a lot of people had themselves listed as atheists. it might be prying to deep- but there should be a poll about it. It'd just be intresting to see- how some of the religious views in different anime go over some people's heads- or how others are able to ignore it completly and still enjoy the show. Besides- like the rant said- a lot of anime shows a poof concept of true Christianity. Just mostly the surface things. But we do the exact same thing- with people who have Ying-Yang shirts and don't know what it means and don't care to find out why. I think that has to do with each country having its on base religion- and how christianity made its way to their shores. I've been very chatty this week. Oh- I forgot to mention that I have heard an anime that said: "Oh my God" in the japanese version, bleach episode 85 Last edited by britannicamoore on Thu Jun 21, 2007 11:54 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ichiro3923
 Posts: 167 Location: hiding in your closet watching you |
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Awesome rant, I was also wondering about how Japanese and anime portray Christians.
Christian characters in anime sound too preachy and revengeful "under the will of God." As long as people don't get the idea that all Catholics are extremists, intolerant, and judgemental, then I don't mind that much. |
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TakinawaTonfa
Posts: 96 |
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Zac, I really like the switch into italicized text right in the middle of the column. Way to do something different and jazz it up!
 (Well, while it lasted anyway...)
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Josh7289
Posts: 1252 |
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Quickly, to Abigail, the ranter, I believe that creators of anything should have complete control over their works. Whether they will offend other people or not should not matter. In this case, it comes down to exactly what you said. "If you don't like it, don't buy it." Simple as that. Just ignore it and it will not bother you anymore.
And as a side note, what translations are you reading that intentionally "put a swear word in every sentence and then some)"? |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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I love how the flake of the week who wrote words in ALL CAPS for emphasis completely failed to make the effort to at least spell them right.
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shirokiryuu
Posts: 714 Location: Northern California (SF Bay Area) |
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i have to admit I was one of those fans who disliked being too into the "mainstream series", but often because I disliked being associated with the rabid fanbase (which always existed, but now has grown and has gone into the public).
For example, althought I'm a girl who likes anime, I'm not necessarily a yaoi fangirl. I was NEVER a yaoi fangirl. >_> I also have trouble with umm.. anime fans I would not like to assosiate with, but have to for the sake of the club. I'm nice to everyone anyways, but sometimes, I wish that I had more "cool" anime fans in my school [off-topic] Although I'm always confused about Azumanga Daioh, it's obviously loved by otaku, and usually anything sort of show directed to the otaku audience is not of my liking. Yet I genuinely like Azumanga Daioh... [/off-topic] |
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loka
 Posts: 373 Location: Pittsburgh, PA |
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is that rant kid serious? if the creators had done their 'homework', the priests in trinity blood would looking around for little boys to...
and the nuns from chrno crusade would be teaching schoolgirls that their bodies are not under their own jurisdiction. yes; why dont we have an anime where people with a cross on their clothing are doing what they do in real life: yelling at the masses to condemn gays, hollywood, and videogames. i mean...how is it possibly wrong to have a non-real portrayal of people who preach MYTHOLOGY, in a work of FICTION [ !! ] Last edited by loka on Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:24 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Ulto
 Posts: 25 |
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Okay, I feel obligated as usual to poke at this weeks rant, so here we go...
First thing, I have to say, what with things like Da Vinci Code, the West has far more fun playing with Christianity than anything coming out of Japan. The refrence to Laputa was particularly amusing, considering that the technique of using biblical references to make your ultra-weapon more impressive was a technique developed on this side of the world, and is still used far more commonly by our local Sci-fi/Fantasy authors than it is anywhere in Asia... And now for quotage of the source...
Again, nun humor wasn't a Japanese creation. They probably picked that up from us, as we've been doing that for longer than Anime existed... -_- Also, even if that weren't the case, would not the entire base of the humor be the innapropriateness of the situation...? Humor 101, anyone?
Okay, the context of this one made me laugh histerically. Think about it for a momnet. Someone has just spent a paraghraph or two talking about the potential bad influences of Hellsing, and they're worried about it changing audiences perception on... religion...? Did we miss the whole guts and blood spilling all over the place, the smoking guns, the carnal refrences? And frankly, if anyone is letting Hellsing shape thier worldview, then trust me, religion will be the least of their problems ¬_¬ |
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Eruanna
 Posts: 451 Location: Canada |
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Oh gosh, to whoever wrote the rant, I am cheering you on.
I dont make it much of a secret that I am a christian, and I am actually a lot more lax in how much butchering of Christianity I am willing to put up with in my anime then, say, my parents would like. I enjoy both Hellsing and Trinity Blood, although I would be lying if I said that the strange interpretations of my faith didn't make me a little bit uncomfortable. There has only been two shows that so crossed the line that I had to put it down, even though I REALLY wanted to get into them, and those were D.Grey-Man and Le Chevalier d'Eon. Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne almost did, too, but I stuck with it because it was a lot of nonsence, really. But I completly agree with you, that while it is understandable where the Japanese are comming from (foreign = cool but meaningless), it would be nice if people stopped and realised that a lot of people are actually christians, and might not like seeing all sorts of absurd things in their media about what they supposedly belive. Its easy to paint christians with a black brush and tell us that we are all stupid and self righteous anyways and should just get over it, and Iv seen lots of posts (even here, on this very forum) making fun of christians for screaming "blasphemy".Iv lost my train of thought, but I wanted to say to the ranter, good on you! |
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LightYagami
 Posts: 257 Location: around the midwest |
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After reading the flake of the week from the last few editions of answerman I have a suggestion for the flakes that Zac gets from now on so here it goes:
1. Create a new forum section entitled: Black Hole: all your dumb flake belong to us 2. Every week Zac(If he wants) dumps some of the dumbest submissions that he received for the week for example: dumb flakes for week of 6-25-2007 with the submitter NOT being identified and SHALL NOT be identified period. 3. Only Zac, mods, admins, anyone with higher authority than a normal user, etc can create threads and make posts and shall be the only ones allowed to create threads in this section to prevent user abuse, in the event a user or spambot decides to dump copies of the e-mail that he/she received 4. All normal users CAN comment but CANNOT create/start threads for reasons stated in no.#3 5. Feel free to rip away at the flakes like "digimon b****" from the 6-15-2007 answerman I know that this suggestion might come off as insulting towards the people that submitted them, but it seems some of the flakes of the week seem to be on a downward spiral towards the negative IQ area if that is even possible. What does everyone else think of this suggestion? |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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The rant:
eww What irks me about people who get all offended by stuff like this is this: Its Freakin fiction. Religious symbolism is used because it sounds cool. Theyre not making some kinda statement or in any way claiming that such things are true so get over it.
This is a perfect example. Though my family is not catholic, my brother goes to a catholic school (long story) where he has to take a class on catholic beliefs, and they haven't ever mentioned anything about killing vampires. In fairness though that may be more of a college level course. I think the moment they decided that it would be about vampires, it was pretty safe to say they werent going for an acurate portrayal of the world. In which case, who cares? Its not like people are actually seeing this and thinking that must be what the catholic church is about. (especially north americans who are familiar with such religions.)
Where as Alucard on the other hand is just all sunshine and kittens... Are any of the characters really that much better? No.
But thats the key. Its a commonly used phrase here so it makes sense to use it when translating something to its american equivalant. Its silly to isolate your issues with this phase to Anime. BTW, why go off on a little rant on swearing at the end here?
How bout "If you don't like it, get over it?" I dont see how the use of these symbols is going to cause any problems. Especially here where its fairly obvious to people that these are inacurate (and again fictional) portrayals. |
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Ulto
Posts: 25 |
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That just means you like the series for something other than the fact that it targets otaku, right? Likewise, I could imagine someone liking (to use our very own Answerman's examples of uber-otakudom) Suzumia Haruhi for the art, Kanon 2 for the jokes (Some of which are even genuinely funny), and Air TV for the music [switch those around however you like, each reason could apply to any of them, especially the art; say what you want about fan service and dependant girls (Though I'm not sure why everyone says Air and Kanon are full of overly-dependant girls. If you want sickening dependance, watch Shuffle, which frankly made me want to puke after a few episodes)]. I digress, but the main point is that is that most series have merits other than their target at otakudom. The only possible exception I can think of from the shows I've watched is Lucky Star, which begs the definition of a Niche Anime (Becuase frankly, all the jokes are about otaku culture, and unlike the infamous "Welcome to the NHK", no explaination is provided for outsiders).
As mentioned several times before, the two problems with this statement are: A) From a Japanese veiwpoint, the line "a lot of people are Christian" is false. The number of strongly chrisitan Japanese people is insignificant, and likewise the erronious interpretations are both easy to make and not particularly offensive to the target audience (i.e. Japan) B) From a larger veiwpoint, the statement is highly hypocritical. Quite frankly, the western world has degradingly misinterpreted Eastern religions and traditions to a far greater degree in it's own media.
Sounds dandy. Just let me prep my flamethrower. 
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the Rancorous
 Posts: 2248 Location: Hunting the Dragon in Gransys |
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yeah seriously, it seems like the ones with the worst grammar are the ones who yell the loudest 
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