Now,  do go on, don’t mind me. I’m just a weird person who’s smiling wickedly by itself while watching attempts of camaraderie.

It’s been a while since I last found myself reading Saturnity’s grand enlightenment again. Now, it’s safe to say I can gladly blame him for concocting another pastime for myself: Observing fanclubs. And judging by the streak it’s making, it’s as interesting as your usual dose of Internet dorama. I’m not going to force you guys to take this ride, but I do appreciate if you hear me out on how the ride’s going so far.

Even though I’m trying to refrain from rousing my inner troll, this is just something that leaves a bad aftertaste no matter how you cook it. I’ve had my experiences on clubbing, and never, NEVER, NEVER, was I satisfied or aggravated so much that it would make me stay for the hell of it. It comes in many forms: Foruming, Listing, Genre Appreciation, Real-Life Get-Togethers, or whatever you want to call all of them. They’re never the same no matter how you drown your denial with the most notable similarities you can think on any of them.

In order to understand, let’s backtrack a bit on my first years of otakudom, or in those cases, “otakudom”. It first came to me on the Anime Turnpike, specifically their forum. You’ll see dedicated parts for clubs that support a certain genre. Look inside, and you’ll see a lot of people talking in your generic “Your favorite *insert anime/manga/genre here* *insert interesting thing about said anime/manga/genre here*” topics. You don’t see very much in-depth interaction unless you’re with a decultard, an elitist, or a troll, and these type of guys are very rare in the olden times. Actually, talking to them is the only instance where things get interesting. So you can like,  go say “Okay, it’s fine, I get it, so stop stating the obvious and talk about something that makes sense”, and the general fanbase would just be mighty mad at you for it since you “don’t see the beauty of merely appreciating it”. This then results to flaming (the word troll isn’t that popular back then), and if someone gets butthurt REALLY BAD about it, godmodding and permabanning.

That’s where we move on with the idea of running a website. During the Anipike age, most of the anime and manga sites were in the form of shrines,  or websites that exist for the sole purpose of revering the things people like in their anime and manga. But since appreciation for media is limited to what is copyrighted or supplied back then, the sites’ scope of fandom were limited as well. Now that torrenting is widespread, and we’re in the eras of blogging, listing, scanlation and fansubbing, this view has changed. People have evolved their fandom into something far greater, and with it, they have spawned a deeper and wider view of how they see the fandom. Of course, this doesn’t change the fact that people can still get shallow or narrow-minded. Versatility is as elusive as the impossible, and we know that being a member of the Fourth Estate means being versatile to your readers’ opinions and points of view.

So let’s get off the Internet for a change. To be honest, I’m not a very outgoing person (even though that changed a bit recently, but let’s not get into that), so why ask me to join a club? If I had a policy for joining one, that would have be observing how it goes. Yeah, I know, same deal as the above mentioned. I play safe, and I can even count as evil for doing it, but take a look: Gaming fanclubs require attendance, and a bad case of insomnia. Anime fanclubs require you to watch stuff, and try to find something appealing to it, even if you can’t find one, which leaves you to agree to what  any of them said, or avoid to watch the stuff while making an excuse as to why. Figure clubs require you a lot of money and rabid rage in order to showcase a formidable collection, which practically doesn’t sit well with me (unless you’re talking about Gunpla, then that’s a different story). Manga fanclubs are rare and sometimes limited to manga-only titles, some of which are hard to obtain or are not that famous (though majority of the non-famous titles are good). While observing, you’ll see people trying to moonspeak, play games like there’s no tomorrow, dance like electrified yuri teleporters, sing anime and JPOP songs out of sync or tone,  watch hentai thinking it’ll make them cool and more adult-like, ogle and unintentionally break their figures and nendoroids, or talk about very deep stuff. This, while convincing me to join the club? No way.

By now, you may be thinking that I’m just some Jack of All Trades, hopping from one hobby to another, not being able to find what I’m looking for, or not having the balls to see things through. Yeah, I may be something like that, but people should also consider that being what I am right now also means being versatile in a way. What’s the best solution, then?

Ask me, and I’ll tell you my solution: Don’t join a club, or if you want to walk the tightrope between solitude and camaraderie, join a group of people who have the same drive or general interest as you have who aren’t in any clubs, or refuse to join any. There’s a big difference between people who get together to form a club, and people get together but refuse to form a club. And I ask you this: Which of the two has more versatility, more potential, and more exposure and eventual appreciation for the culture?

/stain: “practicality” ≠ “impurity” ≠ “corruption“

I was visiting the Moritheil Review when I stumbled upon this site. Well, it’s not really a site. It’s an “otaku purity test” that tells if you really are an otaku at heart, and how pure or impure are you in being one. It’s got questions mostly aimed at the American audience, but I took it anyway. The result:

This is what you get for hitting the submit button after forgetting you haven’t answered any questions yet.

While I was “taking” this test, I thought: This is somewhat expected, so why the hell am I taking this test? You’ve got the OEG guys doing us the favor, manually and painstakingly plucking the bad weeds off our Garden of Eden, even though they’re starting to have cases of bad judgment. You’ve got yourself to talk to if you are somehow unaware of how you’re doing so far in the world of fandom. You’ve got the whole visual culture society, whom you can ask for constructive criticism anytime. So what’s the point of taking the test, then?

perhaps this will provide a necessary frame of reference: there has always been, and probably always will be, a normative force in any subculture that seeks “purity.”

Moritheil (12/10/2009)

People say a lot of things when it comes to being otaku. People say a lot more when it comes to how otaku you are. As if correcting itself, or at least keeping itself in check, the visual culture continuously spawns entities that categorize, divide, and prosecute the populace. And boy, how grand they are in terms of popularity, insufficiency, and eventual failure. Now, you do know where this talk is going to, yes? Well, that’s just a tiny little part of the post. The other parts are going to be as heavy as artillery bullets.

Watch out for this question. If you checked the box, and the OEG guys get a hold of your purity test results while they’re deliberating on your blog, you’re dead. And it’s going to be overkill if you retaliated using the Wikipedia entry.

Elitism on otaku can be a very bad thing. It can make you stupid and one-sided, and it can do that with a force that can equal or even overwhelm your elitist ideals and beliefs. I’m not going to elaborate further on examples like the trying-hard otaku = weeaboo thing, or the fansub = piracy thing, or the scanlation = piracy thing, or the Gundam fan ≠ sci-fi fan ≠ mecha otaku thing. Japanese visual culture is always evolving, always changing according to how it is perceived by more than one audience, and we need to consider our own evolution as fans if this is the case. But let’s try to take one thing that I’d really like to take out of my system: Practicality.

Decide.

If you’re asked to pick between a complete manga library of an “officially translated” title, and an external hard drive to put fansubs and scanlations of the same title, you’ll most likely pick the manga library, right? After all, it’s “legit” paperback, and you don’t get to have these often unless you’re fine with chasing volume availability or steep book prices or complete but expensive library purchases. However, the poor and the practical would choose the latter choice, or a cheaper and more viable alternative (an external DVD-RW drive and a stack of DVD-RWs, anyone?). And who wins in the end? Who gets their money’s worth? Who gets enough material and hard drive space for more stuff to jam in? In the end, it’s like normal practicality, where you can decide to buy the brand name of a pair of shoes, or just buy the same functionality from a cheap, brandless pair.

I’m not exactly poor, but I’m exactly as practical as I can get. Screw purity, screw corruption. It’s not what makes me an otaku anyway.

]]> http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/2945/feed 4 http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/2367 http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/archives/2367#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 16:44:36 +0000 Shance http://rainbowsphere.oniichannoecchi.com/?p=2367

I’d die of moe if there was loli Warc…

Thanks to Xephfyre, I’m back to the scanlating business. Back as in FORCED BACK, and for an INDEFINITE TIME too. Well, whims of interest, you get the gist. Anyways, I’m going to give you guys the shared work of C.I., his nifty tranny, and myself, so I’m not going to linger any longer. DO I HEAR SOME CHEERS? OH YES, I DO!

Download Link 1

And since I want to feel secure those who would get it, here’s another download link.

Download Link 2

Until the Night of Wallachia’s extinguished for good, I plan to stay on helping the Dasaku Melty Blood scanlation team even if I was just forced to, so keep watch!