WEIRD SEARCH REQUESTS
"On october 2003, is sailor moon sailor stars showing on television?"
Answer: no, not bloody likely, until Toei, the Japanese licensor, changes its mind about withholding
Sailor Stars, the fifth and final season of (animated)
Sailor Moon, from the North American market completely to protect what they see as
Sailor Moon's "family-friendly" image. See, that's one reason a heckuva lot of anime fans fail to appreciate as to why anime on television is often severely edited; often, the Japanese licensor will request things not be shown or withhold episodes and entire seasons if they think they'll be the slightest bit controversial because the licensors just ain't this bastion of "artistic integrity" some fans make them out to be... they want a piece of the pie in the world's most lucrative TV market, and, if a series has any sort of kiddy TV merchandising spin-off potential, they happily go along with any edits the American licensee and/or TV outlet will request.
Okay... well, you know, my 29th birthday is coming up on October 2nd, so... well... I set up one of those
Amazon.com Wish List thingies, not that I'm exactly expecting any random readers to send me stuff... but... it doesn't hurt to ask.
Just DVDs for now, but I'll add things as they occur to me.
WEIRD SEARCH REQUESTS
"saint-seiya are-gay"
Hmm... if you're looking for yaoi slash fanfics of
Saint Seiya, you won't find anything like that here. Fan fictions involving lots of gay sex are just gross
if they don't involve the scrumptious Yuki and the hunky Kyou from Fruits Basket! But, lucky you! I found a couple of yaoi
Saint Seiya fics in English
here!
Oh, maybe what I heard about Johnny Depp yesterday was wrong.
This article says his quotes were taken out of context and exaggerated. It would not surprise me one bit if a European magazine outside the Anglosphere in the current climate would take a few quotes from an admired American actor like he and "sex them up a bit" in order to make him seem anti-American. Hmm... those European magazine writers sure are lying liars... maybe I ought to write a book about the lying liberal media worldwide? I'll call it "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them"... umm... on second thought, maybe not.
Well, I guess, for now, it's safe for me to see
Once Upon a Time in Mexico and buy the
Pirates of the Caribbean DVD when it's released.
Ah, too bad. I like Johnny Depp as an actor, and I really liked his performance as Jack Sparrow in
Pirates of the Caribbean... but... it seems that it's time to add him to the list! The
Celebrity Liberal Blacklist Whine List.
From
Reuters:
Johnny Depp Says U.S. Is Like a Stupid Puppy
Wed September 3, 2003 06:30 AM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Hollywood star Johnny Depp said on Wednesday the United States was a stupid, aggressive puppy and he would not live there until the political climate changed.
The 40-year-old actor, who stars in the "Pirates of the Caribbean," told the German news magazine Stern he was happier staying in the south of France with his wife, the French actress and singer Vanessa Paradis, and their two children.
"America is dumb, it's like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you, aggressive," he said.
"My daughter is four, my boy is one. I'd like them to see America as a toy, a broken toy. Investigate it a little, check it out, get this feeling and then get out," said the star of the off-beat films "Edward Scissorhands" and "Dead Man."
Depp slammed George W. Bush's administration for its criticism of French opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
"I was ecstatic they re-named 'French Fries' as 'Freedom Fries'. Grown men and women in positions of power in the U.S. government showing themselves as idiots," he told Stern.
Well, you know, I guess that's what happens when you marry a French woman, even a
chanteuse as alluring as Vanessa Paradis, who I remember well from Musique Plus in the 1980s and early 90s; you gotta slag America publicly to get her to open her legs. Pity...
REBUILDING THE REAL WORLD TRADE CENTER
Hmm... been fairly quiet on the rebuilding news front lately, but
this New York Times article (free registration required) is quite heartening.
"For the Restoration Movement, any decision to do anything other than rebuild the towers is the wrong thing to do. And the decision to adopt Daniel Libeskind's plan for a faceted glass tower is the wrongest thing of all.
Their setbacks have only fueled their resolve and hardened their rhetoric. They now refer to Mr. Libeskind's plan as "a death pit," and they declare, in press releases, that if the towers aren't rebuilt the terrorists will have won. None of this has endeared them to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, of course. But it has also enraged representatives of the victims' families. "Some people really think that the towers killed their loved ones," Mr. Wright said. "So for supporting the rebuilding of the towers, I was called a murderer."
Sensing that their ideas were being dismissed, the members began holding meetings at one another's apartments and in coffee shops. They drew up a 1,500-person e-mail list and sent out frequent updates. And they took to the streets, collecting signatures and handing out stickers that read, "YES I'd work on the 110th floor!""
You know, I actually doubt the self-appointed "representatives" of the victims' families represent the feelings of all the victims' families (in fact I know I've read some quotes from victims' relatives in favour of rebuilding the real Twin Towers), but, in any event, frankly, the views of those of us that want to see the lower Manhattan skyline restored and not replaced should trump the views of a few pussies that either don't want to build as tall as before or just leave the pit empty for good (the Daniel Libeskind "Terrorists Win Death Pit").
"On July 26, they held a rally at City Hall Park that was preserved on videotape by one of the members. It was an exercise in civil obedience. Competing with the roar of passing buses and the general torpor of a hot summer day, a succession of supporters made heartfelt speeches. The proceedings hit their sharpest edge when Jonathan Hakala, who worked on the 77th floor of 1 World Trade Center, dismissed Mr. Libeskind's tower as "anorexic spires that resemble large drinking straws.""
"Drinking straws", eh? The analogy I like to use about how the Libeskind plan for the "world's tallest buidling" is really just an 80 storey building with a stupid, useless, ornamental spire rather than 2 buildings with 110 storeys of functional floor space is: I can stretch the foreskin of my penis out quite a ways, but it doesn't mean I can claim my 6� inch penis is a foot long.
"Mr. Epstein shook his head. "I don't think there's any doubt that people are afraid of being associated with us," he said. "At the moment, we are the losing team."
Asked if they believed they would eventually prevail, all four members offered an obligatory yes. Then Ms. Mello recanted. "No," she said. "They will build what they want to build, and they will not care what we say."
Her colleagues around the table nodded stoically. Then Mr. Epstein piped up. "She's right, we won't win," he said. "Not right away. They will build something like they say they're going to build, because there's too much riding on it for them to back out. The victims groups are still too powerful, too determined to let their personal grief speak for all of us. But it will be a huge failure and everyone will know it, and they will tear it down and rebuild the towers at least as tall as the old ones.""
Well, I don't know about tearing the new buildings down, but, as I've said before, the advantage of Libeskind's Death Pit is that it leaves vacant space to build what ought to be rebuilt when the politicians and business people stop being such politically correct pussies and do what scores of people inside and outside New York want them to do...
By the way, the World Trade Center Restoration Movement seems to have a
web site, but it doesn't seem to be working at the time of this writing. I'll add it to my list of links in the sidebar should it start working again.
"YOU'RE ONE IN A MILLION, YOU'RE A SHOOTING STAR"
Ooh... there's a chance that a
big-ass "shooting star" will hit Earth in 2014, but the odds are just one in a million. Well, actually more like one in 909 000, but "One in Nine Hundred and Nine Thousand" isn't the name of a Guns N' Roses song, so I just rounded up a little.
But... you know... pretty much any big rock in the sky that leaves the asteroid belt has a tiny, tiny chance of hitting the Earth at some point in time, so I don't see the point in reporting it.
It Could Happen magazine is just a joke on Rush Limbaugh's radio programme, right?
CSU WATCH
Ooh... I'm not naming names, but it looks like someone from the Concordia Student Union's been doing a vanity search. Don't ask me how I know... I see everything, bwahahahahahah!
Fortunately, it's one of the *good* CSU people and not one of the ones I called a "Communist", though, for libel suit purposes, should one of them see that, I was referring to the other guy. (Though it's not exactly libel, is it, if I saw that one of them, running as a representative for independent students, had a poster in 2001 which read, and I quote, "Vote for Communism"... I just can't remember if it was Tweedledum or Tweedledee that put up the poster?)
Hmm... I'm glad to see that YTV will be showing the new
Teen Titans cartoon on Saturday mornings, so now *Canadian* anime fanboys can bitch and moan about how
Teen Titans rips-off the anime style completely.
a) I consider American cartoons being influenced by Japanese cartoons to be a *good* thing overall.
b) While the look of the characters obviously takes some cues from anime, now that I've seen the characters in motion in the promos, it doesn't quite look like most anime... it looks closer to the style of the WB cartoons from the 90s and this nameless decade based on DC Comics superheroes (re: Batman: the Animated Series/Superman/Batman Beyond/Justice League and whatnot, and not the old Hanna Barbera Superfriends and the Filmation Batman series from the 1970) except the characters have bigger, anime-styled eyes, and are supposed to have the embarassment sweatdrop every once in a while.
Also regarding superhero cartoons on YTV, though I don't count this one as a "cartoon" because it's fully 3D and "toon-shaded", though one can argue the face textures may be handdrawn, which would make the word "cartoon" not completely inappropriate, is the new MTV
Spider-Man series now on YTV... I suppose the series looks cool if you're into toon-shaded 3D (and certainly the 3D city graphics looked miles better than the cheesy 3D city backgrounds in the 90s
Spider-Man cartoon), but... meh... I miss the human, hand-drawn touch. Maybe I'd have a better opinion of the show, but the first episode YTV showed had Spider-Man going up against evil capitalist, probably Republican and
Dittohead, developers from the evil Osbourne Corporation who wanted to knock down an apartment building full of poor, WTO-summit-rioting,
Nazimedia-reading hippies. Umm... give me a break. This animated series is meant to sell a whole new line of merchandise, videogames and toys (as well as Marvel comics, obviously), not to mention to propagate interest in the
Spider-Man franchise at least until the next movie is released next summer, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. It's the free market at its finest. So, please, enough with the capitalism-bashing in the series because it's just so utterly hypocritical considering this series is as corporate as they get. Not to mention the "evil developer wanting to destroy a building/neighbourhood/ski resort full of decent, colourful, eccentric people and build condos for boring Yuppies" premise is about the most clich�d storyline you can use.
YTV showed the first episode of
Dragonball, but, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't tell whether it's an entirely new dub or just the same old Ocean dub YTV showed briefly during the "Brain Wash" programming block on Saturday mornings in the winter and spring of 1996, especially because YTV cut short the credits at the end, so I couldn't see the copyright year or company info. You did see Bulma's panties when Goku was checking to see if she had a tail, as well as Bulma's sparkling pee twinkling down when she was hanging off the branch, but I seem to recall they did show that in 1996. I just missed the scene where Goku was swimming and caught the fish, so I didn't see if you see Goku's penis (which you see in the "uncut" version, heh heh) or just the digital underwear. Well, either way, it's still a welcome sight to see the original
Dragonball series back on YTV because the emphasis is on the comedy and not so much the endless fights like on
Dragonball Z.
Not on YTV, but I still have to watch
Stitch... I watched a few minutes last night before I fell asleep, and the animation looks decent, certainly better than I heard. Maybe it's just that I know it's done by Disney's TV Animation division and not Feature Animation, and I know to compare the anmation quality to the Disney TV cartoons like
Ducktales,
Darkwing Duck and
Gargoyles, and not the massive budget films like
The Lion King,
Beauty and the Beast and, of course,
Lilo & Stitch.
Hmm... since my brother, Nick, is home for Labour Day weekend, I asked him to take me to Blockbuster so I could return a film and rent
Stitch, which I did... but I didn't want to go home right away, so I convinced him to drive around Vaudreuil-Dorion, across the Ottawa (Outaouais) River from Pincourt. Geez... there's a new McDonald's on St. Charles (the Vaudreuil St. Charles, not the Beaconsfield/Kirkland St. Charles) near the old, nearly empty Vaudreuil shopping centre. How long has that been there? Damnit, now Vaudreuil-Dorion's a "two McDonald's town", whilst Pincourt doesn't even have one McDonald's. (I'm not going to pretend I don't like the taste of the food at McDonald's because I do... they got to me young, what can I say?)
Also, my brother does the best impression of Cita from
Cita's World on BET I've ever heard. (Well, it's the only impression of Cita, but it's still very good). Because... damn, what language is the computer-generated lady speaking? Is it an "urban" (code word for "black") street version of the Hutt language that Jabba speaks? There's the occasional intelligible English word peppered in there, but, most of the time, she may well be speaking Hindi for all I can tell. I like my Cita joke: "Something's wrong with Lara Croft... she has shorter hair, and the colour is a bit off..." I'm surprised
South Park hasn't made fun of Cita yet, but there's always the
Boondocks cartoon coming. I do recall that Aaron McGruder wanted to name Cita the most embarrassing black person of the year, except she's not a real person, so... he's gotta do something about her in the cartoon. And, make no mistake, I am looking forward to the
Boondocks cartoon, even though I know
Mumia's guilty as hell while that seems to be news to Huey and Cesar. (Oh well...)
EDIT: Also, why the fuck does the accursed
CRTC let Canadians watch BET but not Cartoon Network? I swear, there's no justice...
Sorry, person searching for information on
Sledge Hammer, that show was from the 80s, not the 90s. And it's "
Sledge Hammer"... "Sledgehammer" is the Peter Gabriel song.
I actually did like that show, though, and I even called my dog (1987-2002) "Sledge Hammer".
Ooh... here's a page called
Anime Sucks, obviously satire designed to raise the ire of the
sort of anime fans who like complaining about everything (like the fuss about the Julie McBride-Wyatt op-ed, which practically no one outside of anime fandom noticed).
Also in the AnimeNation.net forum, here's an
early review of Satoshi Kon's Tokyo Godfathers from someone at the Big Apple Anime Fest. (Here, once again, is
my review of Millenium Actress from 2001, the previous film from Satoshi Kon, to be released in very limited release with only subtitled prints in September, and the DVD will appear on October 28th).
While I'm plugging online anime retailers, I just wanted to point out that
Anime Nation is now taking preorders for the
2004 Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou/Yokohama Shopping Log/Quiet Country Caf� Calendar, full of Hitoshi Ashinano's lovely ink-and-watercolour artwork. Unlike some anime calendars (well, the calendar is based on the manga, not the anime), the
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou calendar has a different picture for *each* month, not just every 2 months, plus it will have some sort of special 2 page spread you can use as a poster, assuming it's like the 2001 and 2003
YKK calendars, which I also have. The 2001 calendar came with a balsa wood "fish vane", like a smaller version of the one outside Caf� Alpha, and the 2003 calendar came with a cell phone strap marked "Cafe Alpha" with a little metal tag based on the "fish vane". I wonder what the premium will be this year?
Here's a
review of the Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou manga, the
official page from Sony for the anime, the
Caf� Alpha forum, and there's another link which I don't think I should give... maybe try searching for "Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou" somewhere if you're "feeling lucky", if you catch my drift? I think the manga will be licensed in English very, very soon from
Studio Proteus, though.
90% of the anime sellers that show up in the BlogSpot ad bar at the top of the screen sell bootlegged anime DVDs and CDs from Taiwan or China, but I am pleased to see that one legit anime retailer has finally been added to the mix of anime retailers that use the BlogSpot ad bar for advertising:
ROBERT'S ANIME CORNER STORE. From their
soundtrack page:
"OUR NO PIRATE POLICY: Here at the Anime Corner, you will NEVER FIND lower quality pirated knockoff CD's like those produced under the labels SonMay (SM), EverAnime, Archer Records, or Golden Diamond Music (have you checked your CD's lately?). CD's with these labels are reproductions of the original Japanese CD's made by Taiwanese firms who illegally copy these works without license and without paying royalties to the original Japanese artists. They have no place at any legitimate Anime retailer, they degrade the industry as a whole, and you will never find them here at the Anime Corner!
I've amended the warning at the side of my page. Please feel free to give
ROBERT'S ANIME CORNER STORE your patronage.
Now, look, I respect
AnimeNation's John Oppliger, of
"Ask John" fame, plenty, but, on the issue of his
opposition to any edits to anime for TV broadcast, I'm afraid that I think his views are way too "pie in the sky" and would only be realistic if the United States of America were an anime fan utopia, where absolutely everyone were an anime fan and equally concerned about the integrity of what they watch even on television, which is never, ever, ever going to happen. Anime is a small niche interest, and, while anime enjoys a certain degree of popularity on specific cable outlets where the "average" viewer is far more likely to enjoy at least a handful of anime shows, this has much more to do with the phenomena of "narrowcasting", with so many cable/satellitle channels out there that each one has to appeal to a specific niche or perish, than it has with any breakthrough of anime fandom in general to the mainstream North American audience, which ain't going to happen. Ever.
Select excerpts:
"In the 1970s and 1980s, anime was edited and dubbed for American TV because that's the only way it could possibly air on American television. However, much time has passed and the anime industry in America has evolved while the American television broadcast of anime largely has not evolved at all. The International Channel has proven, in its limited exposure, that airing totally uncut, subtitled, and even totally unaltered and untranslated anime on American television is possible. Yet the Anime Network, the self-promoted first American anime only "channel" still offers no Japanese language anime."
The thing about the audience for the
anime shown on the International Channel (one of many, many channels I wish I could watch in Canada) is that they're in a programming block aimed specifically at Asian Americans broadcasting in their native languages, with subtitles for viewers that don't speak Japanese, and any non-Asians that watch the anime are really just "gravy" for the advertisers. It's not aimed at the general audience like Cartoon Network, Tech TV or the Anime Network. I think
the Anime Network, as it's "video-on-demand" for now, has the potential to offer the subtitled version... except, for now, TAN is free to viewers of the Comcast satellite system, and, since ADV must be bleeding money out of the wahoo for this endeavour anyhow (they'll go pay-per-view or super premium sooner or later, mark my words), they need some incentive for people to buy the DVDs. (My somewhat educated guess is that they're assessing the true size of the audience in the test markets to determine what form of fee structure they'll have to implement to make a profit from this.)
"Many fans simply argue that as long as uncut, bilingual anime is released to domestic DVD, what happens to anime on American television is irrelevant. Unfortunately, this may be a narrow-minded and short-sighted perspective. Beside the fact that dubbing and editing anime for American television is a corruption of its original artistic integrity, dubbed and especially edited anime on American television may so as much to propagate itself as promote interest in anime. By continuing to create and support alternate home video and TV versions of anime like Card Captor Sakura and St. Seiya American anime fans and the American anime industry is at least partially continuing to feed and nurture a demand for dumbed down and censored anime. Continuing to air edited anime on American television doesn't promote the TV broadcast of unedited anime; it simply promotes the broadcast of still more edited anime."
I don't disagree that
Knights of the Zodiac is a dumbed-down version of
Saint Seiya and that
Cardcaptors is a dumbed-down version of
Cardcaptor Sakura, but, the honest to God truth is that, yes, since the subtitled, intact version of
Cardcaptor Sakura is available, I choose simply to ignore
Cardcaptors, and the fact that there are people, mostly young children, that enjoy the dumbed-down version of the show doesn't bother me in the slightest. It's called "being pragmatic". I could have
bitched-and-moaned about Cardcaptors osoku made (Nobuo and Carol Akiyama's
2001 Japanese and English Idioms book gives this as a translation for "until the cows come home) and boycotted the subtitled, intact
Cardcaptor Sakura, because Nelvana got a slice of the profit pie, but, ultimately, it would have accomplished zilch, and it would have made me look like such a fanboy. Plus, for most anime, I think "artistic integrity" is a total red herring; anime is expensive to make, a lot cheaper than Disney films, certainly, but still well beyond what 99.9% of individuals are able to pay, so the creators of the original work or idea, especially when an anime is based on a manga, have to make all sorts of compromises in order to get their work animated, especially if it's to be shown on television. Acting as self-appointed guardians of the integrity of CLAMP's work is arrogant and fanboyish to say the least... if CLAMP were really all that concerned about their "artistic integrity", they never would have agreed to let
Cardcaptor Sakura be animated in the first place. And... arguing that something like
Pok�mon should have the same level of "artistic integrity" as... say... a Ghibli film or
Millenium Actress makes my eyes roll.
So, the truth of the matter there is that, by supporting two levels of release, one for a mainstream children's audience and one for purist anime fans, I am indeed helping to support the existence of "dumbed-down" versions of anime series, but I'm fine with that.
"Rather than demanding unaltered anime on American television, many American fans either make do with censored TV broadcasts or disregard censored TV broadcasts by demanding only uncut DVDs. Personally, I suspect that many fans assume that the fact anime is now on American television will eventually lead to uncut, unaltered anime on American television. But such an assumption has very little weight. The continued broadcast of censored anime, I think, conditions viewers to just expect more censored anime. The American television industry works, very much, on a policy of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If censored, edited anime on America television turns a profit, what motivation is there for television networks to air unedited anime?"
I never had the assumption that, eventually, most anime would air on Cartoon Network completely unedited. Until all Americans become anime purists (re: never), that isn't a reasonable assumption to have. The
Adult Swim stuff overall, from what I understand since I can't watch CN in Canada, is getting less and less animated, but, aside from a few "gift" presentations like
FLCL, things will still have to be edited somewhat, both for content reasons and for commercial time. That's just the way the TV world works, and it doesn't bother me. I just view the CN airings of anime as sort of a commercial for the subtitled, uncut DVDs... the people that care will buy that versions, and the people that don't care can just enjoy "their" version of the anime shows as broadcast.
Anyhow, this column led to a
thread in the "Ask John" forum (EDIT: the thread has been removed) entitled "Are today's anime purists 'selling out'?", which is a ridiculous premise right there, since, if you never owned the rights to the animated properties in the first place, you can't sell out.
Here are my responses:
1) "How is it "selling out" if I simply don't care how stuff is edited or rewritten for TV? I could care and protest and boycott if a TV dub for little kids isn't up to my own purist standards, or I could do something more productive with my time, like draining the Atlantic Ocean with a thimble...
Seeing as how I never personally owned the North American rights to the Cardcaptor Sakura anime in the first place, I don't see how I could sell out. Nelvana sold us a subtitled, intact version of Cardcaptor Sakura, and that's all I wanted. I could still bitch n' moan about Cardcaptors (even though it's a dead horse), but it would have accomplished nothing and it would make me look like such a fanboy."
2) "I'd only boycott individual titles, not entire companies, and that would be only if they didn't have a version up to my standards. Fortunately, I don't care about Initial D either...
Though, I have to say, I already had a translation of Wish so I never bothered buying the Tokyopop version... though I'm not talking about a scanlation, just the completely legit French-language version from Tonkam."
3) "Oh, I didn't realize this thread was in response to an "Ask John" article.
While I respect John's opinions on those matters, I just "agree to disagree" with him there. To be perfectly honest, I'm really not concerned with "artistic integrity" at all... I'm a pragmatic anime fan who simply cares about getting intact versions of things I like... but the existence of alternate, heavily-edited, "dumbed-down" versions really don't bother me, and I don't give a rat's butt about the artistic integrity of Pok�mon and the like. It's a battle I choose not to fight or even care about as it's not a battle I can ever win unless I own the rights myself."
Anyhow, you can be a defender of "artistic integrity" and fight the "good" fight and oppose *all* edits made to *any* anime anywhere, even on TV, on "principle", I'm not going to stop you, but prepare for a life of constant disappointment and indignation since you'll likely never be satisfied.
I'm finding that a surprising number of guys seem to think that the two ridiculously staged, unpassionate, publicity stunt, faux-lesbian kisses at the MTV Video Music Awards were alluring? Hello... am the only person that is rude enough to point out something glaringly obvious to me? Something that makes the whole affair just disgusting instead of sexy? Yes, it would have been quite erection-inducing had the kisses been between the two young songstresses, who are turning 22 and 23 in December, respectively. However, both kisses were between one of the younger songstresses and the 80s pop sensation whom turned 45 in August. So... not only is she literally over twice the age of one of the girls she tongued, she's just a couple of months short of being twice the age of the other one, and, more inportantly, her age is just over the combined age of the two young starlets. I'm sorry if I'm being somewhat "ageist", but I find that just wrong...
