Japan + You = DOES NOT COMPUTE?

Owen has again made himself manifest with this post. Though I did take a hit or two, I wouldn’t mind. It’s how things stand anyway.

Your Japan is right here.

Now, I’m not going to talk about how I know stuff, or how I see things fit. I’m not one to talk for that since things and thoughts differ from person to person. But I think I stand for something of temperance, whereas a certain fanaticism of a certain field would be loved so much as to be alienated from what it used to be. Therefore, I think Owen has proved a certain point.

So basically, it’s about how people think they can learn Japanese by watching stuff. Or more like they learn to PERCEIVE. I’m not against all the osmosis-to-learn-moonspeak-by-”understanding”-stuff-with-moonspeak or something, but I think there should be a limitation of some degree on how you can exalt yourself from the rest of the otaku populace just because you can half-ass your way to understanding how an episode is laid out. Of course, that means I despise some people who would blatantly prance around and tell tales about it, only to get a major assfuck from someone who doesn’t even know a thing or two about moonspeak the next day.

And Japanese isn’t only limited to cathode ray tubes or LCDs. Your doses of moving ROYGBIV aren’t your only sources of visual material anyway. There’s the usual paperback material of manga and novels, or some other forms of “software”, like eroges, visual novels, and such. However, as previously mentioned, immersing oneself on these doesn’t mean you know shit, unless you’ve been doing this way before old season B&G Astroboy got sound. I’d reconsider it a bit if you had that shit on your record. You’ll also need to bring me a blue robot that time-travels for more proof.

I disagree about Owen saying anime isn’t deep, though. I mean, it’s not THAT deep, but it’s not that shallow either. I could say that there must be a better understanding of things to be able to discern depth when it comes to this. Like for example, there is always a different meaning to a certain scene when understood correctly, much like how intricate horror films do, which is to astound the viewers with an appropriate response, aside from entertaining them. But like I said, it’s not always limited to anime, especially on some series that may have started off as a manga, novel, or something of the sort. Deeper perception may be acquired on different materials, instead of the one in question, which sometimes apply pretty well on some instances. Guess that’s one way to say the anime was crappy, heh.

So, does this give justification to call anime as “just cartoons”? I don’t think so. There’s a thin, fine line differentiating cartoons and anime. More like a thick line, to correct myself. Anime didn’t get its own name and definition to be called cartoons. They differ a lot from cartoons. They’re drawn differently from cartoons. They have genres not present from cartoons. It’s a whole new concept of animation that takes it a step further from the cartoons we used to know, and that’s concrete facts being stated there. Then again, some series got so bad, some people don’t call it anime. So does it depend on how otaku it is to be able to say it’s anime? Can you say it’s good enough that you can even understand what’s going on, even ON MUTE?

Fan work. The godsends for people who can’t understand moonspeak, and an additional burden for those who do. No, I don’t have a bullet to fire for them. More like I do, but it’s an indirect hit, sort of friendly fire. I don’t really care much as to how a certain episode is subbed, nor do I care how an eroge is translated. Some of them may be so obsessed with quality, they mess it up, and some are too engaged on a certain scene they put a lot of shit here and there so that they can give people a piece of their minds with the intention of letting them know what really happens on real time, which of course just confuses people all the more. Okay, great, I’m fucking talking like fucking Otaking here, what the shit. I just need it to be as simple as it can be, and that’s it. If I were to be asked about preferences; as long as it’s understandable, then I guess it is credible to watch. I’m not as quality-obsessed as the others, but you might expect worse criticism if we delve deeper, so I guess I’ll leave it.

Owen did not really aim for discrimination. He just merely stated a certain way for people to behave according to what they know, and what they don’t. Sure, there’s some people who need to be brought down a notch or two, but I don’t think he means it in a bad way. It’s just that if there’s someone noting how you behave that means it’s CONCERN, not just mere judging. If you’re dense enough, you’d just let your anger get the better of you and just go gung-ho napalm, which feeds Owen’s trollmachine all the more. But if you know where to look at yourself, then you’d know he’s got some point, and you need to consider it. I’m not talking to anybody in particular here, nor am I talking about anime or visual culture in general. It applies EVERYWHERE. And that’s common sense, not logic.