On the bright side, I think few are naive enough or hopelessly optimistic enough to think that they won’t be spending crazy amounts of money on merchandise while in Japan. On the down side, even those who come prepared with money to spend and a budget to spend it on can get caught up in the insane amount of stuff they encounter while they’re there. There are a few places that almost require a visit, but there are also places that you’ll happen upon almost unexpectedly. Those will get you, those unexpected places full of impulse buys. Here are the top five money-sinks for weeaboo in Tokyo from my own personal experience:

5. Akihabara

Akihabara is the most obvious place. You go there knowing full well that it’s a huge fantard paradise. You go there expecting to see stormtroopers dancing in the streets and flash mobs breaking out in “Hare Hare Yukai” in addition to the maid cafes, manga cafes, pachinko parlors, the billion electronics stores, arcades, and seven-story buildings filled basement to roof with nothing but anime merchandise. Yes, that is buildings, plural, all seven to nine stories tall. Filled with anime merchandise. Seriously. It’s like the biggest convention dealer’s room you’ve ever seen. Multiplied by some obscene number. Sure, buildings in Tokyo all tend to be tall and narrow, so one floor might not constitute as much, but once you’re climbing the stairs in your fourth or fifth building, the magnitude of it all really starts to sink in.

The novelty of Akiba will probably lead you to choose it as one of your first stops. Unfortunately, as far as wise-spending goes, it’s probably one of the worst places on the list because most of the stores here sell new merchandise at standard retail price — some places may even inflate them knowing full well the district’s notoriety in otaku circles. Though some items will be on the shelves here faster, you might be better off buying most figs and models online, even with shipping costs. But there’s so much of it here! All in such close proximity! It’s hard to go around browsing and not see something that you want right then and there.

Some stores will have discount bins with older or merchandise from less popular series, but unless you have some really obscure tastes or some really good luck, there usually isn’t much there that’s worth it. Digging through them is kind of fun though, even if the employees will look at you funny.

I wasn’t adventurous enough to check out any of the numerous maid cafes advertised on street corners by maids with ridiculously high-pitched voices, but friends of mine who were reported that the prices at the cafes were pretty insane. ¥750 for a non-refillable glass of lemonade? Really? You’re paying for the attention of your maid, certainly, but I’d rather pay for the attention of a figurine. Maybe this says something about me.

Overall, Akihabara is fun mostly for the crazy volume of stuff you’ll see in a relatively small area. There won’t be too many rare finds here, but there will be tons of general stuff to distract you. You will see tons and tons of merchandise from series you’re only casually interested in and be tempted just because they’re there, they’re pretty, and the price doesn’t seem that bad. Being that Akiba was one of the first places I visited though, I was very conservative while there, intent on scoping out all that was available before making spending choices. Yes, there were still a couple of impulse buys along the way, but looking back, I didn’t spend that…

4. Ikebukuro

Ikebukuro, or perhaps, more specifically, Otome Road, has been billed as the Akihabara for female otaku and fujoushi. This is pretty much because there are five or six major doujinshi outlets sitting together on a street, and everyone knows that fujoushi go nuts over their doujin, right? There are a handful of general anime stores in the area, the biggest of which is eight-story animate, as well as a BOOK-OFF with your standard discounted manga, and numerous arcades, but you won’t really find anything there that you won’t find in Akiba.

I don’t really consider myself a huge, huge fan of doujinshi, partially because the overtly BL majority annoys me sometimes, but mostly because I tend to be very picky when it comes to the art. However, faced with these five or six major doujin chains, each with at least two stories of bookshelves filled end to end with books, I knew I was bound to find something I liked. And unlike a lot of more general anime merchandise, it is insanely hard to find doujinshi outside of Japan — much less doujinshi by an artist you like, with a pairing you like, from a series you like — and the prices tend to be fairly high, so I definitely wanted to pick up at least one or two titles while I was there. But just one or two. Not that many. I had no intention of starting a mini-doujin collection while I was there.

The mistake was visiting Otome Road with my friend Chewi. You see, both Chewi and I have this complex where we feel better about buying things if someone with us also buys something. We tend not to spend much when we are shopping alone or when we are with people that are being careful with their money. But when we’re together, we end up enabling each other. It was pretty bad. “I don’t know if I should get this — are you getting that?” / “I guess I’ll buy this if you buy that.” / “Oh, are you still browsing? I guess I’ll see if I like anything over here then.” / “Are you checking out? I guess I’ll go ahead and get this then.” etc.

We spent an entire afternoon in Ikebukuro. Buying doujinshi. We combed through every one of those stores and did not leave a single one without buying at least one book each. It took much longer than I would have imagined because choosing what to buy is an exhaustive affair. Everything is shrink wrapped, regardless of rating, so there’s little to judge but the cover — how do you know that the art on the inside is just as good? A majority of books, especially those from older fandoms, were ¥210. Some thicker books were ¥420. These are killer prices when you consider that a lot of doujinshi will go anywhere between $10-50 online because all doujinshi is printed in very limited runs. Even the anthologies priced at ¥3200 don’t seem that outrageous when you consider that it might be impossible to find in another year. So when you’re faced with a dozen books with pretty good covers at two bucks a pop, how do you resist buying all of them? Especially when the person next to you has a stack of similar size? Money-sink!

Chewi ended up with a lot more than me, but this was mostly because she went in knowing more of what she wanted. Being a bigger doujin fan than I, she had a better idea of which artists’ work she liked and what was rare, etc. Her fandom and pairing of choice (One Piece – SanjiZoro) was also more popular than mine (Gundam SEED – Asucaga), though I did end up buying a few Code Geass – Suzalulu books because the cover art blew me away.

You won’t be spending much in Ikebukuro if you aren’t interested in doujinshi, but if you’re even marginally interested, I would recommend either 1) not bringing an enabler friend with you, 2) budgeting your time so that you don’t spend freakin’ hours camped out in front of the bookshelves trying to decide whether to buy book A or B. Honestly though, I don’t really regret any of my purchases there. For the most part, I picked good books, and the ones I didn’t end up liking that much, I managed to resell later for a small profit. :3

3. The Pokemon Center

There were actually only a few places in Tokyo I was absolutely dead set on visiting while I was there. Predictably, Pokemon Center was one of them. The first time, I wandered around Daimon for about an hour and half trying to find the damn place before asking a traffic cop for directions only to realize that I didn’t know the words for “left” and “right” in Japanese. Thankfully, the cop, upon realizing my supreme gaijinness, ended up pointing in one direction and declaring “Straight, then lefto!”  To be fair, the PokeCenter is tucked away in an office building and is a small portion of a single story, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking for at the time.

But it was certainly worth the effort finding it.

I went to the PokeCenter three times in total and spent no less than $100 USD on each trip. I spent more here than any other place in Tokyo and had to buy an extra bag to be able to bring all of it home with me. …But I’m putting it as #3 because I realize not everyone is as fanatical as I am in this regard, even if a lot of my purchases were intended for resale at PKMNCollectors upon my return. But really, if there was ever a Pokemon fan in you, if there is even a sliver of nostalgia in you, if you have ever picked up and liked a Pokemon game, you will buy something here. There is just so much to choose from.

The thing about Pokemon in Japan is that there is a universal appeal. Sure, it’s aimed primarily towards children, but huddled around the wifi point at the Center, I saw a group of salarymen picking up the promotional Pokemon they got for visiting. They all left individually, without kids in tow. Each time I went, there were just as many, if not more, adults as there were children, and as such, the merchandise available is very varied. There are adorable plushies and shelves full of stationary, and there are also cups, mugs, towels, backpacks, figurines, board games, stamps, candies, and cookies. But there are also designer clothing and purses, delicate tea sets, jewelry, and other decidedly grown-up items.

With so many Pokemon (we’re just over 500 now, if you were wondering), there are definitely a few that are being neglected as far as merchandise goes, but also with so many Pokemon, there is bound to be one you like that’s available. Additionally, the PokeCenter almost always has some sort of limited promotion going on, and items released for the event become instantly rare and expensive after the duration. While I was there in December 2009, there were lots of HeartGold/SoulSilver limited promo stuff, as well as an Eeveelution promotion. Some of the merchandise released during these promotions have already inflated 200-300% their retail price. Pokemon collecting is serious business! But even if you aren’t a collector, I’m sure you’ll find something to bring home.

2. Nakano Broadway

You know, digging through my photos, I couldn’t find any general pictures I took at Nakano Broadway — a very unassuming four-story mall directly across from Nakano Station — this means that I was too busy freaking out over how amazing the place was the entire time I was there, all three times I was there. I took this photo off Google.

Nakano does not seem to be nearly as well-known as Akihabara, or even Ikebukuro, but one stop here could save you the trip to both. Merch-wise, there is nothing that either of the aforementioned has that Nakano doesn’t. All of Akiba’s merchandise — its figurines, its models, its cosplay, whatever — all of that is here. All of Otome Road’s doujinshi — that’s here too*. And there’s more. While the first floor has a lot of more “normal” shops for clothing and stationary and electronics and whatever else normal people buy, the second, third, and parts of the fourth floor are filled with otaku-related goods. It’s true that two or three floors here can’t possibly equal the volume of stuff that’s in Akiba, even if the floors are considerably larger, but what makes Nakano better is the fact that the shops here are more like flea market or garage sale stalls rather than normal retail chains.

While newer merchandise may take longer to show up at Nakano, there is a wealth of older stuff, making it the perfect place to hunt for rarer goods. Gashapon that are no longer in circulation find their way into dozens of stores, packaged clearly so you aren’t playing chance games at the machine, hoping you get the one fig in the series that you want. A lot of older blind box figures are also available in a similar manner. Models and figurines from decade-old series are displayed in glass cases lining the hallways. The fourth floor plays host to a half dozen shops dedicated to selling old animation cels — let the treasure hunting begin! You’ll also find a lot of other random Japanese novelty goods not necessarily anime-related. There is a Japanese equivalent to Spencer’s Gifts tucked away in the corner of the second floor, I believe.

Both Mandarake and K-Books, two major doujin chains (though Mandarake also sells a bunch of other stuff), have shops in Nakano, giving you plenty of books to choose from. *Naturally, given the limited quantities of most doujin, the selection between Nakano and Ikebukuro varies greatly, but visiting one and not the other will probably save you some money you weren’t intending to spend in the first place. (As for me, I probably spent equal amounts on doujin in both locations. Unfortunately, Chewi accompanied me on one of my trips to Nakano… so yeah.)

Nakano Broadway can kind of be considered the previous three places bundled up in a nice package. You will find tons of general anime goods a la Akihabara. You will find plenty of doujinshi to save you a trip to Ikebukuro. And inevitably, you will find a ton of Pokemon merchandise in one form or another, though in this case, it may be harder to find rarer toys because a lot of the older and more widely circulated stuff isn’t worth much.

Save your money for this place. You will probably be able to find most of what you wanted elsewhere and then some.

1. Any Place With Gashapon Machines

This is the killer, right here. Gashapon are innocent-looking things: those little machines filled with little plastic balls filled with little (usually) plastic toys. They range from ¥100-¥500 a pop and the toys are almost always of exceptional quality, so they definitely feel worth it. What’s a hundred yen here and there for a cute phone charm or figure? Nothin’ at all.

But these machines are pervasive. These machines are everywhere. The above picture was taken in Akihabara, but don’t let that fool you. There were gashapon machines outside of the temple in Asakusa. There were gashapon machines all over the place in the subways. There were gashapon in the parks, at the zoo. There were gashapon in the tourist traps and the hidden side streets. It is impossible to go a day in Tokyo without encountering a gashapon machine that contains something you wouldn’t mind owning. And those ¥100-¥500 yen goes add up. Fast.

These are the purchases you don’t expect. You aren’t heading to an anime-related destination today; you’re just going to a museum. Right outside the museum? BAM. Evangelion gashapon figures. You’re going to a shrine today. Across the street from the shrine? BAM. Pokemon gashapon figures. Sitting next to that cool-looking ramen place? BAM. One Piece gashapon phone charms. This one’s only ¥200! What else are you gonna buy today? A postcard? Oh snap, you didn’t get the one you wanted. Another go’s only ¥200, where’s the harm? Oh, this one’s pretty cool, but still not the one you wanted. Gasha-pon! There goes another ¥200.

Remember my friend Chewi? We were in the subway station on our way from Mitaka to Nakano. In the station was a bunch of gashapon machines, including one that had a bunch of Hitman Reborn! figures. Chewi had already gotten a few Reborn! figs from gashapon, but this particular series of figs she had not come across before. Being the enabler that I am, I did not dissuade her from getting one. They were only ¥300 each and were larger than a lot of other gashapon figures. Her first go is lucky — it’s a character she likes. She wants to try to get a matching figure of the character she likes him paired with. Second go does not yield this character, but she doesn’t dislike what she gets. Third go also does not yield the right one, but at least it’s not a repeat…

Fourth go is a repeat of the second. Fifth go is a different character, but still not the one she wants. (Sorry, I’m not familiar with Reborn!, so I don’t know any of their names.) At this point Chewi begins to question whether she should continue. Annnnd being the enabler that I am, I don’t start fearing for her wallet until the seventh unsuccessful gashapon. I convince her to give up for the while and we head on to Nakano. At Nakano, we find a room filled with gashapon, and once again, she sees a machine with this series of figures and sinks another ¥900 trying to get this elusive character, in addition to the money she spends on other machines. Do you see the problem here? :D

Eventually, Chewi managed to find the missing figure at a store in Nakano that was selling a them secondhand. Ironically, she bought it for less than the cost of the gashapon because apparently, it was the most common figure. The one she got four repeats of, on the other hand, was one of the rarer ones. Too bad neither of us knew enough Japanese to be able to try and sell her doubles.

I didn’t end up with nearly as many gashapon as Chewi, who probably had 30-40 total. She wouldn’t let me take a picture of them though because she was ashamed. :D

Hopefully, you’ll manage a little better, but honestly, I’m not sure that Chewi has any real regrets.

So instead of that, here are nine series I kind of meant to watch at some point during the last ten years and never got around to, either because I was too busy or too lazy or too cheap or forgot about it. Maybe I’ll get around to some of these eventually, but some of them will probably just slip on further and further into the back of my mind where I’ll forget about them like I’ve probably already forgotten about a dozen other things I intended to watch at some point.

These are in no real order.

1. Voices of a Distant Star (2002)

After seeing 5 Centimeters per Second, I was very interested in seeing Makoto Shinkai’s other works. I was going to include The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004) in this as well, but I think I’ve actually seen a few minutes of that, either of the beginning or the end, I don’t remember. Voices of a Distant Star seems to have a theme similar to 5 Centimeters, which is depressing in that I can relate too well, but it also reminds me a little of PLANETES, which was considerably less depressing, perhaps because it slipped in a lot more comedy. Either way, this movie is definitely something I still intend to check out eventually. I really don’t know why it’s so hard for me to sit down with movies; I never feel like I have enough time.

2. Seirei no Moribito (2007)

As with most series that manage to get on [adult swim], I intended to watch this when it aired there. Unfortunately, its debut coincided with me not owning or having regular access to a television set, and [as] didn’t care to provide it with an online stream like many of its other series at the time, including Code Geass. So I missed out for the while, and I guess it was just as well considering the various bullshit [as] put the series. I think they eventually did air all of it, but yeah, it definitely never got the respect or attention it probably deserved. To be honest, I really don’t have a good grasp of what the series is actually about or why it’s good, but ghostlightning, among others, assures me that there’s good character development and such, so I guess I’ll probably get around to it eventually. (Then again, ghostlightning, among others, also goaded me into Eureka seveN, so maybe I don’t trust his judgment anymore…)

3. Junjou Romantica (2008)

Actually, nothing about this series interests me. The premise bores me and the character designs bore me, and those are really the only solid things I have to go off of. It seems like a huge combination of all the things that would make a newcomer skeptical of the genre, and after having dabbled in a few other shounen-ai series, I’m inclined to think that maybe my fondness of Gravitation is a huge, huge fluke. Nothing else has appealed to me since, and in retrospect, I can accept that Gravitation really wasn’t all that amazing either. Junjou Romantica interested me solely because, for a while, it seemed almost as popular as Gravi had been in its heyday, especially in that a fair number of guys seemed to regard it with some positivity. It also managed to get a second season. It’s definitely not high on my list of things to see, but I may eventually check out a few episodes at least. Dunno.

4. Kino’s Journey (2003)

My brother’s read and recommended me the manga a few times, but I’m better about eventually seeing an anime than I am about eventually reading a manga, and Kino’s Journey is wonderfully short at 13 episodes. Observations of the human condition always tend to interest me and for one reason or another, I feel that this series has a whimsical nature to it. (Maybe it’s the talking motorcycle.) I definitely want to see this eventually. Eventually!

5. Gankutsuou (2004)

I really like Alexander Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo. Perhaps that is reason enough not to see this series. I mean, I hated Romeo x Juliet, though honestly, I think that hatred stems more from the atrocities of storytelling and character development than any offense I took to the utter bastardization of Shakespeare’s play. But Gankutsuou looks so like such a trippy visual treat! But I’ve already had Monte Cristo ruined for me once before a la the terrible 2002 movie adaptation. Not sure I want to deal with that again. Sure, I’d expect Gankutsuou to be a much looser adaptation, and really, as long as it manages to tell an okay story with okay characters, I probably wouldn’t be that pissed at whatever they end up changing… but by now I know that I’m a purist at heart, even when I try my best not to be. So will I ever see this series? Maybe.

6. Azumanga Daioh (2002)

I just feel like I’m missing out on a lot of Internet nerd culture references by not having seen this, y’know? That and not having read more than a few chapters of Yotsuba&!.

7. Yakitate!! Japan (2004)

When I’d first heard about this show and that it was about bread and puns, I really, really wanted to see it because really, who doesn’t love bread and puns? For one reason or another though, I was unable to do so immediately and so forgot about it and then put it off and then put it off. With a final episode count of 69, it now violates my usual rules for picking up a new series that isn’t currently airing, which are basically “it’s gotta be less than 27 episodes or a Gundam series.” There have been exceptions to this rule certainly, but the more I continue to put it off, the less confident I am that Yakitate!! will be ever an exception.

8. Xam’d: Lost Memories (2008)

I was excited about Xam’d being launched on the PSN and all, but that was mostly irrelevant to me since I didn’t have access. Still, as the series aired, I heard many good things about it. BONES’s animation looked gorgeous as usual and Michiru Oshima did the music! Not to mention the awesome, awesome theme songs Boom Boom Satellites provided. With all those technical goodies, I still haven’t really bothered to see what the story’s about. Maybe if it’s cool sounding, I’ll get to checking it out faster. If it’s forgettable, I’ll probably keeping putting it off and putting it off…

9. Chi’s Sweet Home (2008)

I think I just need more simple adorable sweetness in my life. It’s ongoing and already has like sixty episodes, but this probably isn’t a series for hardcore watching, analyzing, and discussion, so whatever, right? Maybe I’ll be able to sneak some episodes this year in between all the running around hectic and stressed. Who knows. Kitty is so cute.

Happy New Year!

CANAAN is CANAAN, all caps, and not Canaan. LUCKY☆STAR has that star in the middle if you can manage to remember the keyboard code for it. Love★Com has a different star, though many will make do with Love*Com. s-CRY-ed is not Scryed. NieA_7 is not anything but. Baccano! has an exclamation mark. L’Arc~en~Ciel is L’Arc~en~Ciel and not L’arc-en-ciel or Larc en ciel. They are tildes, not hyphens, and make sure you capitalize that ‘a’. Dir en grey fans spot the new and the ignorant by chastising those that write Dir en Grey or, heaven forbid, Dir En Grey. Yoshitoshi ABe always has that ‘b’ capitalized; he is never Yoshitoshi Abe. Someone once told me that hyde, the vocalist for L’Arc~en~Ciel, is spelt in unassuming lowercase when associated with that particular band, but spelt as HYDE when associated with his solo work. This doesn’t always seem to be the case, but that’s one hell of a confusing thing to remember, huh?

You're doing it wrong!

Being a grammar nazi and supremely anal retentive in general, of course I always do my best to ensure I’m spelling things the way they were intended to be spelt, but sometimes, it’s just a pain in the ass, and sometimes, it’s just impossible to tell.

The stars in LUCKY☆STAR and Love★Com are are in many Japanese fonts by default, but they’re absent in most English ones, making it particularly annoying to find ways to type them. miyavi has changed his official stage name so many times, you’d have to be well-versed with his history to know which name to refer to him as during which part of his career, and with so many names. He’s been miyabi, 雅, MYV, and 雅-miyavi-, among others. Who wants to do a proper superscript when they write Tommy heavenly⁶? Or look up the not equals symbol every time they want to write cali≠gari? Same with whatever that weird German character is in Weiß Kreuz, though that’s more “it’s a different language” and less “goddammit, why does there need to be a funky symbol there?!” It’s hard fighting with the obsessive need to do things right and the overwhelming practicality in just not caring.

The SEED in Gundam SEED should be capitalized. I know this because Japanese magazines always write the SEED in capitalized roman letters, even when the rest of it is in kana. But many other series have the entire title “officially” in kana, and then it’s more or less up to translators to dictate how they’re romanized and how particular their spellings are. For example, I’ve seen people write both Beck and BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad. The latter is more popular, but the original (ベック) is all katanana with no subtitle, so who knows? Similarly, is プラネテス PLANETES or Planetes? Should SOUL EATER be capitalized? It is in the logo, but it’s also just ソウルイーター.

The fact that there is no real equivalent to capital letters in Japanese pretty much means that they can have a field day with it and do whatever they want. (They kind of do whatever they want with English anyway.) Most likely, they use it just as a means to stand apart. “SOUL EATER” may or may not be more dramatic than “Soul Eater” — do the Japanese percieve the capital letters to be like shouting like we do? Or is it just different, but not necessarily “louder”? It’s not that hard to remember that ELLEGARDEN, RURUTIA, and ONE OK ROCK are capitalized, or that angela and stereophony are lowercase if we don’t think of them as capital or lowercase letters. They’re just symbols representing a subject. A capital letter does not denote a proper noun and lowercase does not denote a common word. Forget all your rules and just recognize them as what they are. And all the other quirks they pull aside from capitalization/lack of, all the weird spacing and symbols — all just ways to stand out. They aren’t “weird” symbols; they’re just part of the name.

But then sometimes I get the distinct feeling that even the namebearers don’t care that much about how their names are spelt. It’s just all the neurotic fans like me making a big deal out of it. For example, Dir en grey. Only the ‘d’ is capitalized, right? That’s how it’s written on magazines and all of their albums until the Marrow of the Bone (2007), at which point it became DIRENGREY, though I’m not sure if that was an “official” name change or just a typographical choice reflecting musical changes. In any case, neither “Dir en grey” nor “DIRENGREY” is what Shinya, their drummer, wrote on the autographed drumpad he threw out into the pit when I saw them last November.

Nope. That says “DIR en Grey.” Kind of weird, yes? Not even “Dir en grey.” Geez, Shinya, learn how to spell your own band’s name! How can you expect self-righteous fans to yell at other, “less knowing” fans if you can’t even get it right? Maybe in the end, it really doesn’t matter at all as long as people know what you’re talking about, but that doesn’t sit well with the obsessive-compulsive. I don’t care if you capitalize things in odd places or don’t capitalize things or put stars in the middle of words that are impossible for Westerners to type. I just want there to be a right way to write things. Is that so much to ask?

For the record, I did not catch that drumpad (sadly). I just ran into the person who did after the show and got a picture.

Art by Kiriska; I drew this. Yeah, yeah, yeah~.

I don’t really use fanart here. Almost everything I use is official art and the occasional screenshot, and hell, most of my earliest posts had no images at all. Official art and screenshots, regardless of artist, generally belong to the series’ company, which is easy to look up, so I don’t particularly feel the need for accreditation there. The fact that official art is usually purposed for mass distribution is also a good argument. Fanart, on the other hand, is always tricky business, even outside of the aniblogosphere (or perhaps, especially outside of the aniblogosphere?). Legality aside, it’s a question of common courtesy and manners. Regardless of your thoughts concerning your own work, be it your own fanart, writing, quotes, coding, or whatever, there’s no point in pushing your ideologies onto others. Just because you don’t care about being credited for your creations doesn’t mean other people can’t be touchy about their stuff. It’s their right to be touchy if they want to be.

A lot of people have been railing on the Online Fanarts Protection (OFP) union. There’s no point in getting into a cultural, racial, or xenophobic debate over it; whether the Japanese are being unfair towards foreign bloggers isn’t really the issue at hand. The OFP offers a clear message: artists that display the OFP button on their website don’t want you using their work without asking first. If you know the artist of a certain work and you know they back the idea of the OFP, then who are you to ignore the request to ask? Prompted with that, bloggers have pointed out that many Japanese artists don’t sign their work and with the propogation of image boards and collective archives, it can become very difficult to figure out the artist of any given work. I started out agreeing that “artist unknown” was a good enough compromise as I’ve done that in the past, but then I changed my mind. Accreditation is only part of the issue.

Many bloggers write their posts and find appropriate images all in one sitting; even if they know the artist, having to seek permission from anyone becomes a huge hassle because it significantly slows down that groove and routine. In addition to the hassle though, I think one of the biggest reasons people don’t want to ask if they can use something is the possibility that their request might be denied. Just think, you’ve written a brilliant post and you’ve got the perfect piece of fanart to go with it. You’re good and courteous and take the pains to email a foreign artist for permission to use their art on your post. They reply back with a curt “no.” What do you do then? Feign ignorance and hope slapping on a credit will be good enough? Or maybe they just never replied? That’s a better excuse to just slap on a credit.

Credit is a great thing. People deserve to be recognized for their work, and it’s nice for readers to be able to find the home galleries of an artist they’ve stumbled upon from a blog. I agree that more [Japanese] artists should consider signatures or watermarks to make it easier for people to contact them, but it’s easy to forget that some people just don’t want their work used in any way. Rather than attributing the lack of signatures to humility, I rather think many Japanese artists favor anonymity, just like the rest of their culture. They put their art up on display, but they really don’t want it to be associated with any blogger’s commentary or whatever else. Even if you don’t agree with that mindset, it’s fair enough, isn’t it?

Even before this topic erupted on the aniblogosphere, I’ve heard over and over again the argument that if someone doesn’t want their stuff used, then they shouldn’t put it online in the first place. But while I do think that it’s kind of naive for artists to expect people to abide by their wishes, I don’t think it’s wrong to wish it anyway. What ever happened to the “look, but don’t touch” ideaology? An artist’s gallery is like a museum. You are there to look. They want you to look. You don’t take the art home with you. On the Internet, you can save images onto your harddrive; this makes them tempting for later use, but consider this: many museums let you take photos of their exhibitions, but if you’re from the press, come in with your fancy DSLR and tripod, and look like you’ll be publishing your photos somewhere later, they’ll probably ask you to run it by management first. I don’t want to get into a debate comparing journalism with blogging, but I think the analogy works well enough.

It would be probably be ideal for most artists if their works were never displayed anywhere without their expressed permission, regardless of credit. But with the language barrier and the fact that most English-speaking bloggers are using foreign fanart, that’s probably unrealistic. (I don’t necessarily think it’s too much to ask, but it’s still unrealistic.) I’m not sure that “accreditation when possible and ‘artist unknown’ otherwise” is a good enough compromise since there’s no one here to represent the foreign artists (especially those associated with the OFP, who are explicitly against “artist unknown” accreditations), but I guess it does offer more bloggers peace of mind, and it will probably piss less artists off should they chance upon their artwork somewhere it isn’t supposed to be.

Read it before you buy it? Or buy it before you read it?

For anime, how many of your DVDs contain series you haven’t seen at all until you bought them? The number of series being broadcast on television has been dwindling for a while, but more and more companies are streaming their goods online, in whole or part, so there are still plenty of legitimate ways of seeing a series at least partially before buying it (and in addition to DVDs, there are now also budding download-to-own schemes for various platforms). Does anyone walk into the store without an idea of what they want to get? Does anyone just decide to buy a title coincidentally sitting next to the one they intended to get, thinking that it kinda looks interesting?

For manga, there are less legitimate routes to sampling. There are companies that have begun putting their comics online, but they’re almost never in complete collections: some will have a few pages; some will have a few chapters. The few manga magazines we have left and scanlations fill in the gap… along with grazing in the manga section of the bookstore, i.e., sitting around in the aisle and reading the book at the store. How many people buy comics without at least flipping through them first? Who goes off of cover design and backflap synopsises only? Because a vast majority of series are contained over several DVDs or graphic novels, I find it hard to take the risk of buying a single volume of something I may end up disliking. It’s an investment every time I buy something; I don’t buy something without the intention of buying all of it. A four DVD anime series (approx 12-13 episodes) can run up to $100 if they’re particularly expensive. A twelve volume manga series will be least $130. That’s a significant lump of money. Thus, sampling beforehand is pretty much required for me.

Movies and other television shows work similarly. How many people buy DVDs of movies without first having seen it in theatres? Who buys TV dramas without having seen the television broadcast or online streams? Or from a rental? From watching a friend’s copy? There might be exceptions in the five dollar discount bin, but hey, I can buy a sushi lunch for those five bucks instead of picking up a potentially crappy movie that no one else wants either. Music is also similar. Stores have listening stations. Online stores have clips. There’s the radio, Pandora, and related services. Except the cases where they’re already very familiar with the artist, few people will buy an album without sampling it first.

Books might be the trickiest bit. Libraries make them some of the easiest to sample entertainment items ever, and some publishers will have excepts ranging from a page or two or an entire chapter. And yet, most people that read books from libraries probably won’t bother buying a copy of their own, perhaps because the rereadability of books may be less than the rereadability or rewatchability of other media, at least over a short period of time. All the same, book buyers may be among those that are most likely to spontaneously purchase something based only on a synopsis or a book review or a recommendation. Those things certainly influence anime, manga, movie, comic, music, and other buyers, but certainly not to the same degree. Perhaps because paperbacks are among the cheapest of media, book buyers are just be less picky and more willing to take a risk? There’s also much less commitment. Even books in large series are often self-contained enough to buy on their own.

Assuming those assertions are true, it’s interesting that the media that’s easiest to get free is also the media that’s most likely to be purchased without sampling. For the former, is it just a rereadability issue? For the latter, is it just the price point? Is it because library users and book buyers are just different kinds of readers? And are those readers just different from the consumers of other media? Would a book buyer that often buys books based on reviews buy a movie based solely on reviews?

And then there is the question, how many of those that sample anything actually end up buying? Do they not buy because they’ve already sampled or did they just never intend to buy at all? For many media, samplers are usually pirates, but I don’t actually think that matters much. Sampling is sampling, whether or not the means are legitimate. In the end, they can all be split into the following groups:

1) Those that sample something because it’s available. They have no intentions of buying anything ever. Most steretypical pirates probably belong to this group. They download everything because they can. They don’t ever intend to buy anything. If they can’t download it, they just won’t watch it. No big deal for them. They don’t care. These are the people that go into grocery stores and eat all the free samples without ever intending to buy the product. Companies don’t really lose sales over these people; these people were never their customers.

2) Those that sample something because it’s available. They don’t necessarily have intentions of buying it, but might if they really like it. Most respectable fans probably belong to this group. They might watch broacasts or download fansubs and scanlations or ebooks or whatever. They aren’t necessarily looking to buy something, but it’s never out of the question. They are not adverse to supporting those that entertain them. It’s within this group that much of the illegal sampling debates center around. The big question is: how many people are on the fence about buying but end up not doing so because downloading is just easier and cheaper? They might feel guilty, but they still do it. Morality VS Money is a difficult thing. But if they don’t sample anything at all, how will they ever be exposed to something they might want?

3) Those that sample something to decide whether they want to buy it. They buy it if they like it. They don’t if they dislike it. I don’t actually know many people in this last group, but I’m sure there are a good chunk of them. After all, they must be the bulk of people keeping various entertainment industries afloat. These are the people that want to buy things, but aren’t sure what to get.

Maybe the trick is just to put out more products that people actually like love so that more people in group #2 will be compelled to buy. It doesn’t really matter whether or not people are getting a hold of something beforehand if the product kind of sucks. Or maybe people should somehow, impossibly, be forced to not download things and then we’ll see how many actually stumble onto products on their own? Who knows?

So I guess I’m kind of surprised that this time, I think I liked it much, much better.

(This post contains no spoilers for any Harry Potter book or movie.)

More often than not, revisiting titles leads to a greater appreciation rather than the realization that it wasn’t quite as awesome as you once thought. Things you used to like, you’ll generally like more with time. Nostalgia is a strong factor for everyone, but there’s also heightened understanding that comes with maturation and age. Things you didn’t realize before become clearer: politics you didn’t understand in a story or some reference that you couldn’t appreciate at the time. Repeated viewings also help you spot things you might have missed before. Occasionally, you might realize that something actually isn’t that amazing while still understanding why you used to like it so much, but that’s different from suddenly thinking it’s terrible. I think it’s pretty rare for you to hate something you used to be fond of.

For things you used to dislike or were indifferent to, it’s most common to continue disliking or being indifferent to them. When that doesn’t happen though, I think it’s more likely that you’ll appreciate it more — not like it, necessarily, but at least appreciate it more — than dislike it more. Many of the same reasons apply: things become clearer, you catch references you missed, themes you missed, depth you missed. Any vehemence to the dislike also dissipates with time, and chances are if you’re revisiting something at all, you really didn’t hate it that much.

And so admittedly, I never hated Half-Blood Prince. I like the series too much on the whole to hate any part of it, whatever disagreements I might have with Rowling’s specific story decisions. So maybe it isn’t so surprisingly that I seem to have come to terms with these disagreements; perhaps it was inevitable. I still dislike a lot of things (certain things, perhaps it’s even a vehement dislike still), but this third or fourth time through, I feel like I understand a lot better why they’re there and what place those specifics have in the grander scheme of things. The book felt more poignant for it, and it’s kind of strange.

Is this newfound acceptance a mark of maturity on my part, a new understanding because of such, a noted phenomenon, or all of above? Are the subjects and themes within Harry Potter, particularly those explored in the particular book in question, relevant to the phenomenon? It applies to the entire series certainly, but Half-Blood Prince is very much a coming of age book, especially at the end. In it, Harry is sixteen. The book came out in July 2005. Then, I was seventeen. I think it’s kind of funny then, that I should understand the book so much more now for those themes than I did then. The upped appreciation is not a surprise — as I said, nostalgia also adds more appreciation — but is it the teenager that best understands and sympathizes with the teenager, or is it the twenty-something? The thirty-something? The forty-something and beyond? What age group does a coming of age book most affect?

On the other hand, and I just realized this, maybe I liked Half-Blood Prince so much more this time around because I’ve now read the final book. In the last several chapters especially, HBP does so much to prepare both the characters and the readers for the last book, and Deathly Hallows does so much to make you realize just how far everything has come since both the previous installment and the very beginning of the series. Finishing the last book is finishing a series more than a decade in the making and closing the back cover on the last chapter about a character you had grown up with, no matter what age you started the series at (everyone spends their whole life “growing up,” even if the teenage years are the most tumultuous times). Spread out over so many years, the seven book series is a tremendous journey. Knowing all of that now and having the complete frame of reference, the coming of age theme in Half-Blood Prince is that much more powerful. And I can see where the things I disliked connect to that theme (and various others), so thus, my quiet forgiveness.

I guess it’s one of a great many reasons why Harry Potter continues to have such a high readability value for me, and when I reread them, I’m rereading every chapter and every word, not just skimming. I don’t really doubt that will change even when the last two movie comes out and I won’t be able to use them as an excuse to reread a particular volume.

Anyway, I’ll be seeing the HBP movie on Saturday. A review will undoubtedly follow. It’ll probably be pleasantly snarky in that “I’m totally a purist, but not really a hater” sort of way.

One year difference? Riiiight.

Look at Kingdom Hearts. In the first game, Sora and Kairi are fourteen. Riku is fifteen. Sora and Kairi are innocent, completely good-hearted, and faithful to “the light.” Riku is insecure and jealous and “opens himself to darkness.” It’s true that it’s in Riku’s personality that his insecurities should leave him vulerable to negative influence, but why specify that he’s fifteen while his friends are fourteen? Why is that one year difference so significant? In Eureka seveN, Renton is fourteen. He is naive, immature, and is easily confused by things I wouldn’t expect a fourteen-year old to be confused by. In Bleach, Ichigo is fifteen. He is still naive to some extent, but more mature, quicker to act, slower to whine about things. The art depicting all of these characters is also very indicative — Sora, Kairi, and Renton are all drawn with much more child-like proportions (seriously, Sora looks like he’s maybe ten in the above picture). Their faces are round, their eyes are large, their limbs look fragile. Meanwhile, Riku has rather some rather muscular arms and Ichigo is very angular. Puberty is supposed to be an awkward time of gradual transition — things shouldn’t change so much in just a year. I don’t remember changing so much in a year.

The fourteen-year olds bother me a lot more than the fifteen-year olds because they often seem much younger than they claim to be. Renton acts like he’s ten. So does Sora. In both cases, the target audience is the actual age of the characters (and older) rather than the acting age of the characters, so why are they aged down so much? Why does Renton throw so many temper tantrums? Why does Sora have such an untainted, innocent quality to him? I have difficulty imagining any real fourteen-year old boy acting as either of them do. Fourteen is a rebellious age — you go out and do things rather than throw fits, and you are more open to knowingly doing “bad things” rather than maintaining a wholehearted “goodness.” There is little fluctuation in either of those characters’ personalities to indicate that they have even a few of the traditional qualities of teenagers. (Okay, I’m probably being a bit harsh on Renton, but Sora, at least, doesn’t really change.) It isn’t like Eureka seveN or Kingdom Hearts would change dramatically if their protagonists were declared ten-year olds instead of fourteen-year olds.

The fifteen-year olds are usually not so farfetched as fifteen-year olds (except when it comes to having power; fifteen year old pilots always beat the middle-aged pilots!). Then again, Sora is aged to fifteen in Kingdom Hearts II with minimal change in personality, but that’s just him.

This is about how old Sora acts. (Photographer: tofuguns@flickr)

In Sailor Moon, most of the inner senshi are fourteen when they’re introduced. Haruka and Michiru are technically sixteen at their introduction, but as they’re only one grade ahead of the others, it’s close enough? The maturity differences between the former group and the latter pair is striking and commented on several times in the series itself. A vast majority of the pilots in Gundam series are fifteen or older. Amuro Ray, Garrod Ran (Gundam X), all five of the Wing boys, and Setsuna F. Seiei (Gundam 00) are fifteen. Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala are both sixteen in Gundam SEED; I couldn’t find Domon Kasshu’s age (G Gundam), but he was probably seventeen or eighteen — Wikipedia mentions that Sai Saici was the youngest pilot in that series at age sixteen. Judau Ashta (Gundam ZZ) is apparently fourteen; I haven’t seen the series myself, but I wonder if the character is like the various fourteen-year olds described above. (If so, I wonder if that’s one of the reasons ZZ has a bad rap.)

Sailor Moon’s target audience is younger than Gundam’s, so it would make sense that the characters act younger, but Usagi could have just as easily been branded as a fifteen-year old. Similarly, more Gundam pilots could have been stated as fourteen and still act mature. The plus or minus one year would change nothing in the story — they are still teenage magical girls fighting aliens and teenage boys piloting giant robots. Why is the difference between fourteen and fifteen? Why not thirteen and fourteen? Fifteen and sixteen? Everyone between ten and fourteen acts “fourteen” (and by that, I mean ten); everyone between fifteen and their early twenties acts “fifteen.” In Card Captor Sakura, Sakura is ten — Usagi, fourteen, acts about the same maturity level. Setsuna’s fellow Gundam meisters in 00 are aged 23 (Lockon), 18 (Tieria), and 18 (Allelujah) — they all display about the same maturity level.

There are at least a few examples of characters who don’t fit in with what I’ve said; the only one I can think of right now is Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho, who is apparently fourteen but acts older. Are there enough other examples to overturn my observations?

What?! He dies? Noooo!!

Spoiler warnings should never really expire either. It doesn’t matter how long something has been out. There is someone that hasn’t seen or read it. Most online communities have spoiler policies lasting several weeks or several months after a release, and that works fine for an contained group where it isn’t completely unreasonable to assume that most members have seen or read something. But for the general populace, it’s not good to assume anything. Case in point: Death Note is a huge franchise and many, many anime/manga fans have experienced it in one form or another by now. I watched the dub with several friends when it aired on [adultswim]. At the beginning of episode 25, one friend commented, “Oh, is this the episode where ******* ****?” Without thinking, she just gave away the biggest spoiler in the entire series ’cause she figured everyone already knew, right? Oh, snap, another friend had not followed Death Note prior to the dub’s broadcast. Experience thwarted! And apologies don’t erase that newfound, unwelcomed knowledge.

Especially with stories that are retold in a variety of medias, it’s impossible to guess who has read or seen what based on the fact that they’re a fan of such and such. The last Harry Potter book came out two years ago. Two years is a sufficient spoiler buffer for people who consider themselves fans, right? The book’s already been released in a majority of other languages too, so there’s no using that as an excuse either, right? No. There are still a ton of fans that only follow the movies (the misguided fools! The books are infinitely better, but movie fans are fans all the same), and the sixth movie doesn’t come out until next month. I can already hear the assholes driving by and yelling the popular spoiler at unsuspecting kids at midnight openings. Some people only read books or manga; some people only watch anime or movies. Don’t spoil something for someone by assuming they read and watch the same version of the series you did.

More recently, I was considering anibloggers who use Twitter to tweet briefly and semi-episodically about series they’re currently following, including myself. The tweets usually consist of vague exclamations in reaction to something that’s happening — presumably nothing spoileristic, but is what you think is a spoiler the same as what everyone else thinks is a spoiler? As noted, I’m currently rewatching Gundam Wing and I’m tweeting about it. Most are relatively harmless no matter how you look at them, but some of them, upon further reflection, could probably be taken as spoilers. Incredibly minor spoilers, but spoilers all the same.

The rest of this post contains minor spoilers of varying degree for Death Note, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Code Geass, and Gundam Wing, though as is the topic of discussion, some of them are debatable in their status as spoilers at all.

Are there universal guidelines for what is to be considered a spoiler? For Death Note, anyone who’s seen or read the series in its entirety can pretty much agree on what the one major spoiler is aside from the ending itself. It’s similar for the Half-Blood Prince. Both cases involve a death, but does that mean all deaths should count as spoilers? (Incidentally, is the fact that I’ve revealed that both cases involve deaths a spoiler in itself?)

Lelouch kills Clovis in the third episode of Code Geass. Clovis is an extremely minor character partially because he dies so early, but his death reveals very little to either Lelouch or the audience. Should Clovis’s death count as a spoiler? Honestly, the very premise of the series can imply Clovis’s death at Lelouch’s hands. Of course Clovis isn’t important enough to be mentioned in general summaries, but if you came into the series knowing that Lelouch intends to destroy Britannia, then you can pretty much guess that Clovis will be a target from the moment he’s introduced in the first episode. So if Clovis’s death isn’t a spoiler then, is it because the event takes place so close to the beginning of the series? Though Clovis is a much less important character, is his death like Yusuke’s death at the beginning of Yu Yu Hakusho or Goku’s death at the beginning of Dragonball Z?

But “close to the beginning” is also a tricky line to draw. Episode 8 of Gurren Lagann is highly spoileristic — is 8 of 27 not close enough to the beginning? Or does it count as a spoiler just because you can’t really see it coming like you could have for Clovis? Perhaps that’s what should define a spoiler then, something that you can’t see coming? In one of my GW tweets, I mention that in episode 7, Treize stages a huge coup de’tat . 7 of 49 is a bit better than 8 of 27 in terms of closeness to the beginning, but I can’t decide if the coup de’tat is something that you can “see coming,” especially considering how haphazardly paced the first dozen episodes in the series are. It’s also debatable as to whether the coup de’tat has a lot of lasting significance since the political factions of the series are also so turbulent.

There’s also the idea that spoilers don’t need to be confined to singular events — should character development and personality details be counted as spoilers too? Sure, if something in a character’s past is a big reveal (if you can’t see if coming), then it should count, but what about things like… the fact that Lady Une has a split personality? In the series, there is no “big reveal,” and even though you may not expect it, it isn’t very surprising. But still, should it count? It isn’t obvious until maybe episode 10, but I already can’t remember since I don’t find it to be that big a deal. Then again, if I hadn’t already seen all of GW, I might consider that a spoiler — I’m usually pretty high-strung about this kind of stuff.

Ahh! It's a spoiler! Run!

There are many degrees of spoilers, and I’m sure that what one person considers a spoiler might not be for someone else. For my paranoid self, I tend to avoid contact with anything discussing a series I’m interested in and haven’t seen yet. If I inadvertently take a look, I’m the master of skimming things quickly and not picking up more than I need, if anything at all. You can’t be too careful, after all. You only need to be spoiled once.

Note: You can use spoiler tags in the comments with <spoiler></spoiler>. Just kidding! o_O Beware spoilers in the comments! Woo!

(And for the record, this post is actually about 1200 words long. Darn.)

It has some very Apple-inspired aethestics.

I’ve written about the idea of digital distribution of comics before, but had only considered a web-based platform because that was what most companies seemed to be experimenting with at the time. And really, I think one of the other reasons I hadn’t considered the iTunes model before is because I couldn’t really see the comics (or manga) industry ever agreeing on a universal solution, especially considering how haphazard and all over the place everyone’s digital model is for anime and television streams and downloads. And yet, how convenient and elegant it would be if they could agree? If you could find all your comics in one place for the super cheap price of $0.99/issue? It’s just about perfect.

With all the comics inflation that’s been happening recently, the price point of the Longbox might be the most attractive feature for both consumers and companies. Marvel has raised its most popular titles from $2.99/issue to $3.99/issue. For me, the three bucks I’d save buying a digital version is well worth sacrificing the novelty of a hard copy, especially when those three bucks add up every Wednesday. I could use that extra money to buy more comics! For graphic novels, if we go by prices set by various current web-models, they might go for anywhere between $2.50 and $4.50 a volume — at least half the price of Viz’s new $9.99 standard and TOKYOPOP’s $10.99. And for companies, since there would be zero printing costs, and since the Longbox supports formats already being used, it isn’t unlikely that they’d see an even bigger profit margin from digital sales.

A lot of people already read comics digitally, whether legally or illegally, so I really don’t think that transition will be much of an issue here. With money tight in everyone’s pocket’s these days, it’s hard to argue tradition with cost, and the publishing industry in general has been declining for a while. When Amazon’s Kindle 2 released in February, my feed reader was bombarded with Slashdot and New York Times articles comparing its surging popularity with that of Apple’s iPod with further comparisons with the music industry in general. And indeed, there do seem to be a lot of similarities, including telltale mistakes. The Longbox does seek to interface with the Kindle, as well as the score of other experimental eReaders like the iPhone, WiiWare, DS, and Xbox Live. The graphic format of comics might make it more challenging to adapt than text, but at this point, I see its acceptance as inevitable, at the very least on computer screens.

The last thing is, of course, content. A few studios are already on board, but no one major yet (ie, no Marvel or DC or Dark Horse, no Viz or TOKYOPOP). I am hoping that this will change soon as news of the Longbox makes its way around. Really, I don’t see any reason for it to fail once the major players sign on — iTunes is a proven success, and I don’t think comics or comics consumers are all that different from music and music consumers. Such a dramatic shift to digital comics will be hard on a lot of people and there will be casualties in the process (comic stores that don’t host D&D games will be the first to go), but as Ron Richards over at iFanboy dramatically puts it, “Digital comics are inevitable.  Change or Die.”

And yet, even with all the lulz, it’s still so epic when it counts. I’m still enjoying this way too much. Treize takes over the world in seven episodes in one of the most awesome coup de’tats ever. There are so many political things I’m noticing and understanding now that I didn’t even notice the first time around, and it’s just a lot fun to revisit something while simultaneously gaining a whole new experience. Nostalgia and sentimentality is undoubtedly what’s allowing me to forgive all of the more blatant flaws — I’d never accept such huge logic and realism gaps in a recent show, as evidenced by my dislike of Gundam 00, but for Wing, it’s all right.

But I never feel as if the nostalgia factor blinds me. Forgiving the flaws isn’t the same as denying they’re there, and besides, most good things have their flaws. It’s just your perspective that determines whether the good outweighs the bad, or if the bad outweighs the good. I’m only seven episodes into the rewatch, but right now, I honestly still think this is a great show. Wing’s storyline is strong and clear, and has many interesting concepts. Its characters are varied and relatively engaging. I still think the music is amazing. I still think the mecha designs in this series are some of the best in the franchise. These are the things that won’t change with time, no matter how many years pass. Good stories are good stories. Good art is good art.

The art and animation are a bit aged now, yes, but they still suit the story. That compatibility is much more important than the fact that it’s not as shiny by today’s standards. Of course it isn’t as shiny; Gundam Wing debuted fourteen years ago. But that doesn’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter that Nosferatu is a black and white, silent, German film. The medium still fits the story, and the story is still good. In that sense, I think that most productions, whether movies or television shows or anime or manga, can be considered “timeless.” It doesn’t matter when it was made; if it had a good story and the medium suited it, then it can remain accessible to any subsequent generation.

But then, what about the things that don’t hold up? Does that imply that they were never good stories in the first place, if the stories aren’t as good now as supposedly used to be?

Actually, I can’t think of many examples of (once) good stories that don’t hold up against the test of time. Most of the stories I loved as a kid I either still love now or still appreciate as something aimed towards kids. Some stories with overt social or political commentary or controversy might be more popular in one century than another, but if there’s enough story to go along with the opinion, I don’t think it’d have trouble remaining accessible. Just look at The Sound of Music or the Watchmen comic or books like Number the Stars.

Stories grounded in a certain time period also aren’t at a particular disadvantage either. As long as people have an understanding of the surrounding history and perspective, it isn’t really a problem. Shakespeare remains timeless despite the fact that his plays are centuries old and in a dialect that died somewhere along the way. The language might turn some people off, but the core of the quality of the stories are unaffected by neither time nor anything else. Can the stories still appeal to people if the language was updated to something more modern? Probably. It’s the same as when a popular novel is translated into several different languages, isn’t it? The story is the same. The story is still good. Everything else is secondary.

It’s kind of interesting to note also that there are a lot more things that I like more the second or third time around than things that I dislike the second or third time around. Second and third experiences allow for better understanding of the story involved, and understanding is essential to many experiences.

Many of the best anime and manga I’ve encountered are neither socially or politically charged or grounded in a specific time period, which will probably help them a lot. Some of them depend heavily on cultural quirks and current fandom (Ouran High School Host Club), and some of them are concentrated on ideas in technology that may well change in the future (Planetes, Ghost in the Shell), but as long as the people in the year 2500 take the time to understand where these stories are coming from, they can enjoy them just as we have. I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up still liking Gundam Wing a lot this time around, and if that’s the case, I don’t think that will change in another decade or two, or three, or four. Similarly, I probably still won’t like Gundam 00 in however many years.

Final conclusion? All good stories are timeless.