Xam’d Episode 3 - Lock Your Crotch?
Jadedness and Elitism - A Self-Defense Mechanism
I think every summer I try to write something like this. By coincidence. Maybe there’s something greater happening? Here’s an anniversary (almost) view on the topic. Anyways–onto elitism.
The feeling of tiredness is your body’s way to get your attention, that it needs rest. Pain is your body’s way to get your attention, that you are probably doing something you shouldn’t be doing. In the same way, let’s take a look at elitism and jadedness as applied to fans.
As I use the term “elitism” and “jadedness” I use it in context of experience. After all, how can you feel pain if nothing is happening or going wrong, or fatigue if you have just woken up from a long, restful sleep? But let’s quickly concede and move on with the fact that some people can be elitist even without much any experience. In that sense, a strong sense of right and wrong coupled with a quickness to judge is something that can be commonly found in human society; it’s not so much a conditioned response as much as a reaction to their perceived notion of what a particular area of fandom is about, as applied within their personal context. To me that’s not really interesting, and that form of elitism is closer to bigotry.
I wish also to distinguish elitism in a more general sense as used to describe trolls. That’s not what I’m talking about in this post, although some trolls are genuinely jaded and elitist (not as a bigot, per above defined meaning). Some people behave a certain way just to get people’s attention, and that’s the basics to trolling. As to how someone disguises trolling in the form of insight, news, soapboxing, or plain flame, that’s merely a choice between weapons to get under the skins of whoever you want to get a rise out of.
Moving on, my notion of what is “jaded” is best drawn as an analogy. A sharp knife, after continued use, will eventually dull (unless it’s some crazyass ceramic thing). Much is the same with a fan’s wit, tenacity and enthusiasm as applied to that fan’s art. That feeling of dullness, however, is translated into a refined form of discernment, reinforced by experience and education. After all, a jaded fan is a fan with a lot of whatever that he or she is a fan of under his or her belt. The extra-sensitive form of discernment creates the mechanism that an elitist rely on to separate what is considered non-l33t from what is.
At the same time, a jaded fan could be just a fan who didn’t hang with the right crowd. Much like a knife that was not used properly, it can grow dull sooner and even break. And there are many fans who started out with the wrong crowd or with the wrong idea about how to live as a fan, and as a result they burn out faster, or burn out in a bad way.
And to be honest, there’s nothing really problematic about being jaded. As an anime fan, I already have only so many hours in a day that I can devote to the basic exercise of watching anime. Watching anime, after all, is what anime fans do first and foremost, I would think. Being increasingly selective of what you watch is one way to cope with the ever-growing number of anime recommended by your friends. As one steps deeper into the abyss of anime fandom, one will probably make more friends within the hobby and gain more recommendations, discover new and old titles and obscure shows that have value to the new fan. (Not to mention the fan activities one can be doing…like blogging.) All of that is time consuming. Being jaded helps you with that by limiting what you watch, what you do, and even how many friends you make.
Of course, one can resign oneself into a niche, a small topical category within a fandom and enjoy the right amount of throughput of new content versus content you can enjoy, while remain relatively refreshed over time. For example, a lot of cosplayers I know don’t really watch much anime at all; but they stick to cosplaying as the primary facet of their fandom, both to intake and as a means to express themselves. While you can still grow wary doing it, it isn’t as bad as a fan who tries to do everything. And I think for some people it helps them to focus both more on their relationships as a member in a community (fans who find a regular means of expressing are often networked with other fans by default) and as an artisan in whatever field of fandom they belong. It’s a notion that puts human beings ahead of the stuff that brought you together.
Elitism rears its head when the reverse happens–when the human interest takes a back seat.
Lastly, there is a price to pay for being jaded–it is an effect upon your personality. It may be a very insightful exercise to recall how things were when you were younger, happier, and more positive about life, anime, or whatever hobby you are in. Look for things that reminds you of your first obsession. How did your personality and personal values change over time? Maybe it’s time to take a break and re-tune yourself?
Ultimately jadedness and elitism are signs of emotional fatigue. I think it’s perfectly okay to disappear for a year and come back fresh, as long as people who cares about you know what is going on.
How to Fix the Industry: Move On
It’s time to move on.
We all know anime doesn’t make itself. For some reason the fact that Japanese (and Chinese and Korean and Vietnamese and Thai) animators make a shiny pocket lint for their hard work always bothered me. Maybe it would’ve bothered me less if fewer anime fans in the West are not whiny. But like you, I’m powerless to do anything about it.
I’d like to think we are at a crossroad in the progression of human history. And I think with the advent of internet and the slowly and surely bridging of the digital divide, humanity will get to a place that telecommunication will transform the world from the top to bottom again, much like how A. G.’s telephone did.
At the same time, what is so fearful, to me, is that moment may have came and went. It’s like some silly fictional prediction of the Rapture–like a thief in the night, some are taken to the heavens for eternity while others remain. Will the same happen for salvation through our technological and social advancements? In a world where change is exponential, will the outdated and antiquated remain?
We had to ask ourselves: did the anime industry miss the boat to digital media heaven? Or are they on a boat with Enma Ai, with a one-way ticket?
Okay, I’ll drop the fearmongering.
Back on topic: the greatest enemy of today’s era are those who resist change for the wrong reasons. Hopefully this is not a wrong reason–
The anarchist in me embraces concept identifying with the free market. Things like “0-day warez” have supporters that argue against the monopolistic nature of copyright and it doesn’t help that there is a software monopoly driving much of the world. And after all, my hard-earned money is no different than yours? Pry it out of my cold, dead hands? It’s a very capitalist view of the world, but it is one shared first and foremost by a lot of people, as I know better now, who are outdated and antiquated. All these pirates are doing the same thing the black-suited corporate whores are doing. It is exactly this kind of thinking, in a false dichotomy, that binds and ties us, collectively, to the dark ages of the late 20th century.
And I think the Japanese, as a tribe of businesspeople, are great at resisting change. They definitely fear the internet much like how Hollywood did in 1996. It is for good reasons, too; the internet is a massive copyright infringement machine, and that is the literal truth. Script kiddies and yours truly have no problem prying mass media out of their hands, and that is why there’s an anticircumvention provision in the US copyright laws that makes these things illegal.
But that’s because mass media is meant to be seen broad and wide, even if sometimes it’s like shota rape or non-shota rape or fake rape or anything else that makes you want to wash your eyes out with bleach. Or Bleach. Whatever it may be, at the end of the day these entertainment or art form or genre or medium or whatever we call are a form of communication, and these audience-less communications want an audience. It’s hard to keep down on good news if you want to tell anyone at all. It’s as natural as expecting water to flow down hill and a fire to be hot. It’s like expecting the ghost that haunts you to have a grudge against you, like callers on Hell Girl’s revenge website.
And equally natural, I guess, is when control breeds a culture of anti-control. Lessig’s presentation here serves that purpose much better than my pathetic attempt to stir up alarm. And fansubbing is exactly an example of this, at least today. Its noble heritage is one that can be characterized by passion, obsession, and all the things that makes terms like “grassroot” and “word-of-mouth” positive marketing terms to use to sell your spiel. The changing times, social norms, drive this rebellion fueled by technology.
The world begs for someone who can show us the way out of this 20th century mindset. WTB the right change PST?
Still, not all changes are good. Today’s fansubbing is probably a good example of a bad change. Most people have long ceased to view fansubs as an expression for the love of the show. My pet peeves with different fansubbers (and people who like this stuff) desecrating OP/ED and credits and the anime’s real estate with fancy translation notes runs along these lines. Let’s leave aside terms like egosubbing and speed subbing, but equally so, fans have grown reliant on fansubs as an outlet for entertainment. They think of it no different than a game they could be playing or a book to be read or a TV show playing on the TV. It’s how I plan my night, anyways.
What’s so shocking is how we rely on fansubs to the extent that it gained a form of validity. We compare legit things to it without much a thought. The general disregard of fansubbing’s shadowy status is not particularly alarming, but rather the disregard of commercial product’s legit status is. Just how does the fansub of a show compare to a legitimate release of a show? Are they really the same? When I spend money and buy some DVD, is it really worth no more than the fansubs of the same show I watched 6 months ago?
In fact, I think this is probably what makes this guy’s argument work (despite it being lame and wrong). I agree that people rely on fansubs too much. It’s gotten to the degree that even if a company legitimately wants to change things and offers an operational alternative to fansubs, people will still cling to fansubs, if only because the price is right. Now in some cases indeed the price is right (legitimately), but if we choose fansubs over the legit stuff, motivated by malice instead of benevolence, then it would have completely transform the nature of fansubbing to something 100% not legitimate (not mentioning the legality of it). The passion would no longer be what drives people to it, but merely a spirit of poverty and disregard for the inherent value of what was once worth thousands of dollars in imported laser disc-ness and SVHS tapes and matching hardware into worthless bits sitting on a $75 hard disk drive.
What’s probably new, as I realized lately, is also that change itself has its costs in this context. You could very well have a free and legal alternative, but people might still prefer fansubs because it’s more comfortable and it is what people are used to. It’s more fun going to IRC and hang with other fans while sharing a work, than to pull down some pant-less, flash-based video every Thursday night. But I guess that’s not something people value in this generation of bittorrenting fandom; anime is anime no matter what it’s printed on, or how, or who had to get hit on the head to make it happen.
[Satoshi Kon’s recent comment about the disposable nature of anime really hits home for me on this point.]
As much as people debate the nature of fansubs, I think it is hiding well the true question: what is the nature of legitimate commercial releases? What do you think makes a commercial release legitimate; as in, it is more desirable than fansubs? This is the first question we have to ask ourselves, as buyers and sellers.
And this is why we need to move on. We should be focused on making legitimate releases better, faster, cheaper, more accessible, more profitable, more meaningful, more sustainable, and more ethical. Some say it’s a dialog, and it indeed is one of the first ways the fans can affect change, if it’s only among other fans.
We need to start caring about things that actually matters. Like, having a bijillion DVDs. And for the most part, it has nothing to do with fansubbing.
Otakon 2008 Countdown?
It’s always a good reminder that the summer convention season is in full swing. We even got our nice (but expected) industry announcement out of the way and hopefully that’ll kickoff a very good summer for us in 2008.
I know I made a couple promises earlier this year but unfortunately one of them fell through. No panel for omo! I’m still up for karaoke however, and I am planning to send out an email very soon. It’s not too late to join in on the potentially epic lame/lol-ness–just leave a comment (and fill in the email field) saying you are interested about embarrassing yourself.
I said this before, but I am still interested in meeting up and saying hello to some of you. JP/Hinano will be spending their carefully saved monies at Mitsuwa Summer Matsuri, so we will certainly be in lack of Russian fangirl nerdrage (if that’s keeping you away, Scott). Since no one said anything I have to presume: 1, no one cares; 2, there’s a better party somewhere I don’t know (and I want to come!); or 3, people are really okay meeting up at my originally proposed time….
Which has to be changed if the JAM Project show is at 8pm … Well, one thing I know is that this year I’ll be using my cell phone to follow twitter. You can stalk me easily by subscribing to it, or let me know who you are so I can do likewise.
Who’s coming? Readers and bloggers alike? I’ll be there from Thursday night until Sunday, so my schedule is relatively accommodating. If meeting random internet people online is too freaky for you, I can work with that too if you don’t want to be identified…but you just have to email me or something.
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Some more useful information. We found out JAM Project’s Brazilian set list from their show last weekend. The only thing you need to take into account is that the individual artists had solo shows prior to the JAM Project concert, and it reflects in their solo section of the set list as reproduced below:
1. Rocks
2. STORMBRINGER
3. No Border
4. CRUSH GEAR FIGHT
5. GARO ~SAVIOR IN THE DARK~
6. Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger (Masaaki Endoh)
7. Rondo ~revolution~ (Masami Okui)
8. Dengeki Sentai Changeman (Hironobu Kageyama)
9. Yakusoku no Chi (Acoustic)
10. In my heart (Acoustic)
11. Angel Voice (Yoshiki Fukuyama)
12. We Are! (Hiroshi Kitadani)
13. Battle Communication
14. PORTAL
15. Break Out
16. Genkai Battle
17. VICTORY
18. SOULTAKER
19. EC1 Hagane no Messiah ~2006 ver.~
20. EC2 GONG
21. EC3 SKILL
Also, on youtube you can find videos. They did not ban video cameras and the like at the show. It’s likely they will not ban it at the Otakon show, too…
The other piece of news is that there’ll be an English verison of No Borders, the single that came out this past Tuesday, performed at Otakon. You can see a glimpse of the words at Masaaki Endou’s blog.
Xam’d Episode 2 - Just As Expected
Xam’d: Lost Memories is almost an anklebiter of an anime, but not quite.
There are less surprises about episode 2 than things I guessed right. The biggest surprise is that episode 2 in HD is even bigger than episode 1 in HD–now it’s up at 1612 megabytes. I guessed episode 2 will come out today (following a weekly schedule…) and it sure did. And it still looks gorgeous. The Top Downloads section of the PSN video store puts Xam’d episode 1 in the #1 slot, so I guess people do care about this not-so little VOD.
What is also not a surprise is that this show is following Eureka 7’s style of pulling the viewer along by dropping the audience in the thick of the setting and lore. The Nausicaa look-a-like spoke in this episode and pulled out some toys that do not do what you think they do just by looking at them.
Maybe I will break out the plot summary knife and a ton of screen caps? Nah. Just enjoy some pics. The story deserves to be told through actual animation…really, really good animation.
