Forum - View topicHey, Answerman! - Whistling in the Dark
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ljaesch
Posts: 299 Location: Enumclaw, WA |
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Normally, I don't like to toot my own horn, but after reading the letter from the reader looking for an anime club, I have a resource that could potentially help them.
I've mentioned in the forums before that I write about anime for another website. About three or so years ago, I put together listings of anime clubs and anime cons through information that I found while doing research on the Internet. Admittedly, the only updates that have made to the listings since then have happened when readers email me and let me know that a club or con no longer exists or if they are part of a club or con that's not currently mentioned. While these listings may bot be perfect, hopefully they can at least serve as a starting point for this reader or for anyone else looking for a club in their area. Anime Club Listings If anyone takes a look at these lists and discover any errors or omissions, please feel free to use the contact link on the site and let me know. Thanks. 
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Japanese homosexuals don't have access to healthcare? Really? I've never heard that. As for otaku voting for Taro Aso, sure, maybe a few did, but I'd imagine most otaku and Japanese young people don't really vote. Generalizing, much?
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Konopan
Posts: 399 |
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I don't get it. Wouldn't newtime fans be more impressed by Redline than older ones? I would assume most people start off with style-over-substance action-oriented anime anyway, at least once they realize there's more to anime than the shows left on [adult swim] or Naruto/Yugioh/Pokemon. People who explore the medium gradually develop interests in other varieties of anime, and become more balanced and less ZOMG COLORS AND ANIMATION, ANIME OF THE CENTURY everytime they find something that excites them a little.
Redline will probably just be a movie heralded by people who don't watch anime (or didn't, before they were recommended to watch it by a friend), and don't care about film in general. Its impact will probably be felt much more upon (if not only by) newer fans than older ones. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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That was a huge part of Aso's platform. He wrangled that otaku vote like no one else before him. |
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rinmackie
Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Maybe so, but that doesn't necessarily mean they went out and voted for him. Just because a politician likes something I like doesn't mean I'll vote for him or her, especially if I disagree with their platform. Besides, I was under the impression mostly old people vote in Japan. |
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Ian K
 Posts: 250 |
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How are homosexuals in Japan denied "rights as human beings"? A quick google search has not provided a terribly large number of examples. This blog post by a Welsh woman teaching in Japan makes it clear that there is a great deal of pressure to meet societal standards, which do not include homosexuality. As a result, there are many misconceptions about homosexuality, and most gay people are very secretive, even going so far as to marry a member of the opposite sex. The author mentions that another foreigner lost his Japanese job after his employer realized he was gay, and assumed that he might have AIDS or be a pedophile. As far as "being denied healthcare", all I could find was this article, which states that because homosexual unions are not recognized legally, gay people struggle to gain visitation rights and to be recognized as healthcare proxies. So gays in Japan are certainly subject to a great deal of societal disapproval and discrimination, but aside from the account of the man who lost his job, I'd hesitate to call that a denial of basic human rights. And I would guess that a few hardcore otaku have lost their jobs when their bosses found out about their fetishes. Then again, otaku have things like Akihabara and Comiket where they can meet one another and indulge in their lifestyle, while very few gays do anything so public, which suggests a major disparity in the amount of stigma each groups faces. I'm not comparing gays and otaku to trivialize the struggles of homosexuals, or to suggest a moral equivalence. Rather, I was intrigued by the original question, and Brian basically threw it out without providing any solid facts for me to dig into. So - is there more to the mistreatment of homosexuals in Japan than my admittedly cursory investigation revealed? |
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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If the government weren't heavily involved in providing health care then it would not be able to keep certain "classes" (An utterly un-American word) from getting access to it. I think we all could learn from Japan's blunder here.
On the question of whether or not our society will ever evolve to the point where we no longer view the insertion of homosexual prurience into media as being sensationalism, I do not think we ever will as we're still using the insertion of heterosexual prurience to get the viewers riled up. We generally don't judge and "point the finger" at heterosexual love scenes as we would with the homosexual ones, but that doesn't mean that those scenes aren't included for the sole purpose of using sex appeal to draw in viewers. Surely Twilight's story (such as it was) could have been told with the dudes keeping their shirts on, and countless movies and television shows could have spoken their piece without the nudity and sex scenes that they forced in? Maybe I'm just tired of seeing token sex scenes being shoe-horned into movies and shows as they're cheap pandering and ruining the flow of the story, regardless of whether or not they're straight or gay scenes? |
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Ryu Shoji
Posts: 676 Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom |
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I actually started an anime club at my college. After a few weeks though, I ended up having to cancel it due to no one showing up.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6900 Location: Kazune City |
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I didn't finish Madoka until almost two months after its broadcast run ended, and managed to avoid all specific-event spoilers. Sure, I saw the general ones, like spoiler["things take a dark turn and cruel acts are performed, Kyubey's not just a cute and fluffy mascot critter."] But my recipe for avoiding spoilers (without actually watching every episode the instant it comes out) is:
* Avoid discussion threads and subforums (e.g. MAL's and Suki's) dedicated to the series. * Avoid reading anime blogs and places like /a/ geared towards "bleeding edge" content. * Avoid clicking on or reading "schmuck bait" spoiler tags. |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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I see people say 'anime of the decade' and hype up stuff every season. Madoka, Steins;Gate, Ano Hana.. you name it. I don't think that feeling really goes away for those people. Kind of hard for it when you get like 30+ brand new shows a season not to get excited.
I can see Redline being like Panty & Stocking in that regard then. More popular with the peripheral anime demographic than the core one. As for anime clubs. We had one in college that was moderate size. The founder was some girl obsessed with Haruhi and the club was called the SOS Brigade. Some crazy people, but in a good way. As for cancelled series.. Gash Bell probably. The manga ended, but the anime was forced to go it's own way and make up it's own ending since the mangaka broke his arm and was unable to draw the manga for awhile, so the anime had to do it's own thing rather than wait all that time. It's still good, but the manga ending would have been so much better and more epic. |
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dewlwieldthedarpachief
 Posts: 751 Location: Canada |
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IIRC, this is still a problem in some states. It is possible for people legally married in one state to be denied things such as hospital visitation rights should one fall ill in a hostile state. In any event, health insurance is mandatory for everyone in Japan under the national program, but it is not enforced. Many people forgo it for private insurance offered by their place of employment. |
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animefan425
Posts: 20 |
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You never heard that because that's an obvious lie. Brian Hanson was just contemptuous against the Japanese. Just to be clear: Japan has NO laws against homosexuality. Sex among consenting adults, in private, regardless of sexual orientation and/or gender, is legal under Japanese law. PERIOD. Brian, you need to apologize to all the perjuries you spouted against Japan in your article (unless of course, you believe your delusions to be true...) |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I thought Brian made it pretty clear that he was talking specifically about civil rights legislation - meaning legal civil unions, legal adoption rights, hospital visitation rights - the same things the LGBT community is fighting for in the US. None of that is even remotely on the table in Japan. They're much further away from any of that becoming a reality. |
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ninjaclown
Posts: 199 |
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animefan425, Did you join JUST to post that? Wow, calm down man.
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mdo7
 Posts: 6371 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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You're not the only one that find that ridiculous too. I call BS on that too because Japan has one of the best healthcare around the world, their healthcare even surpass USA's healthcare system. I remember listening on NPR that the cost of healthcare in Japan is low (there is a drawback though, it's hard for me to understand because I'm not a expert on healthcare system). This one got my attention:
There was however 2 incidents (which I know, are there any more??) where patient get rejected by hospitals in Japan. One involved a pregnant women in her 30's, and a man dies after being rejected from hospital 14 times. But a homosexuals being rejected from healthcare, really?? I'm going to need a news article validating this to see if this is true, because I never heard of this before, and yes I do read news from Japan. EDIT: adding one more thing from NPR. Last edited by mdo7 on Fri Feb 03, 2012 6:13 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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