Opinion Prone

There’s been a lot of political gossip going around since Sarah Palin was put on the Republican ticket. Even before that though, McCain was comparing Obama’s rampant popularity, especially among the 18-24 generation, with a celebrity status. This, along with the recent live action movies I’ve seen involving j-musicians, got me to thinking about how most Japanese celebrities are very, very secretive. Japanese people seem to be really into privacy in general though. They rarely put names on personal websites, are gung-ho about blurring out faces in photos, and prefer anonymous BBS to member-registration-required forums. Celebrities, particularly musicians, seem to be take it a step further. For one, most j-rock artists operate under stage names and aliases.

Who knows what 雅 -miyavi-’s real name is? Pata, hide, Yoshiki, Toshi, and Heath of X Japan — at least three out of five names are obviously fake. The real name of Dir en grey‘s 京 (Kyo) has been a topic of much speculation as he signs his name as Tooru Nishimura in his poetry books, but some sources claim his surname to be Niimura instead. ,Magazines and fansites love listing supposed real names, but it’s incredibly difficult to find any sort of reliable documentation. Gackt’s full stage name Gackt Camui, but it’s still a far cry from whatever his real name is. Birthdays are similarly difficult to find. Gackt’s birthday is July 4th, but the year is still a big question mark. hyde did not confirm his birthday to the public until an interview in 2002, more than a decade after L’Arc~en~Ciel‘s debut.

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I’m not really a big gamer, at least, not anymore. The console I’ve spent the most time on was the Sega Genesis. Handheld was the Gameboy Color. My family skipped a generation and the next console we bought was the Gamecube. They bought the Wii after I moved out. I wanted and got my DS for the sole purpose of playing Pokemon D/P (almost a year later, it’s still the only game I own). So it’s not very surprising that I’ve never played an MMO (and probably never will until someone else realizes that a Pokemon MMO is a brilliant, brilliant idea). But my brother is a big gamer, and I have plenty of friends that are big gamers, so I’m exposed to a lot of random video game discussions by association, and I’ve come to this.

Why don’t they make gold farming legal?

There is such a huge market out there for it, bridging the gap between lazy people who have too much money and poor people that have too much time. Both sides are just perfect for one another, neither is going to disappear any time soon, and there are apparently more than $500 million in underground transactions every year. Half a billion. That is a ton of untapped, potential revenue.

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It used to be that fansubbers would drop a project when it became licensed. They were happy to share and were content to stop when they knew that the titles they cared about were getting the attention they felt they deserved. But then the licenses started to come faster, and faster, and then at breakneck speeds, with companies snatching them up long before the series was even finished airing in Japan. In those circumstances, many groups would continue their releases anyway, though sites like AnimeSuki would respectfully stop linking them. When Toriyama’s World stopped subbing Death Note in the light of Viz’s licensing announcement, three other groups stepped up to take its place. Still, if a cease and desist order came, many sub groups would comply.

So what happens when the cease and desist order comes from a proxy company that doesn’t actually own the license, but apparently has entered an agreement to try and enforce cease and desist orders? So far, it looks like there most groups are still respectful and complying with FUNimation and its proxy fight for d-rights and Enoki Films. When international copyright law is so hard to enforce, and when the production of fansubs enable pirates both domestically and abroad, what the Japanese companies are doing, or trying to do, is perfectly logical. Logical, but is it going to work? While it may seem so for now, I’m still skeptical. After all, if Death Note prevailed, I don’t see why Katekyou Hitman Reborn! won’t.

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This is something I’ve always been kind of curious about. Dozens of j-pop and j-rock stars are catapulted into successful careers because of songs they provided for various anime (as well as video games and live-action adaptations for anime). Gundam SEED propelled Nami Tamaki into international stardom, and she was one of the first Japanese artists to attend a convention in the US, along with T.M. Revolution, at the Pacific Media Expo in 2004. Similarly, SEED Destiny debuted Hitomi Takahashi. Fullmetal Alchemist certainly did not hurt Nana Kitade, and NANA pushed Mika Nakashima to the top of the Oricon charts along with Yuna Ito. Even well established artists benefit greatly from contributing to anime. I’m sure many people went and looked up Nightmare and Maximum the Hormone for the first time after their respective stints for Death Note, and artists like L’Arc~en~Ciel continue headline anime theme songs even after being around for more than fifteen years.

It’s obviously a mutually beneficial relationship. An opening theme by a popular artist can draw people in that might not otherwise be interested, as loosely related as the themes sometimes are. Honestly, despite being a Gundam fan, I was initially drawn to Gundam 00 because L’Arc~en~Ciel’s single for it, “daybreak’s bell” is absolutely gorgeous. And SOUL EATER drew me in from the very beginning thanks in part to the sheer awesomeness of it’s opening theme, “resonance,” by T.M. Revolution. In turn, flocks of loving fans pick up the corresponding singles, often rushing them to the top of various charts. As well, many people are introduced to artists for the first time and subsequently hunt down other songs by them. For an emerging artist, that kind of attention is invaluable.

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Okay. So we all know that digital distribution is the way to go for anime and that almost all companies are experimenting with various platforms, but digital manga…? I have mixed feelings about how well this will work out. Unlike anime, the format of reading a book doesn’t translate as neatly as the format of watching a show on a screen. Manga sales haven’t lagged as much as DVD sales partially because many people still prefer holding a physical book in their hands as opposed to reading on a computer screen (the other reason might be because they’re cheaper). It’s a strain on the eyes too, especially on computers with lower resolutions. This is the main argument against the idea of digitalized manga distribution, and I think it’s a very valid one.

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Studio Pierrot’s president will apparently be at Kinokuniya this Saturday. That’s about a five minute walk from where I work, except, of course, I don’t work on Saturday. I can’t decide if it’d be worth it to go; after all, I don’t pretend to be a real journalist, and am not sure exactly how interesting I would find Mr. Nunokawa’s speech. Undoubtedly, more professional bloggers than myself will provide all the in-depth coverage I could want. Besides, most of the time, going to Kinokuniya ends in me having bought something I didn’t need. They’re giving away passes to New York Anime Fest, which would be a fantastic incentive, except that I won’t be in the state when the con occurs. Oh, woe.

In other news though, there’s been some discussion about Xam’d on the PS3 and Gurren Lagann’s dub release on iTunes. Aside from the fact that Xam’d is exclusive to the most expensive console out there, many people have clamored that its price is outrageous. Now the same’s being said about Gurren Lagann. $51 for a 27 episode series amounts to about $1.88 an episode. That’s really only marginally better than the $1.99/ep you’d be paying without the “season pass,” which would add up to, gasp, $54 total instead. That’s pretty comparable to the Cowboy Bebop regular edition DVD boxset, which retails for about $50 (not counting your awesome Amazon discount). Except that an iTunes download is not a DVD. An iTunes download does not provide both the dub and sub tracks; it provides no extras and no pretty packaging. So, yeah, I think I’ll be in the camp with the people saying this is pretty ridiculous.

Oh, yeah, and Xam’d? That bitch is just a single-vocal track rental. And it costs more than Gurren Lagann to buy. Awesome! Now, just about everyone is a proponent of digital distribution, especially recently with the global economic slowdown. (Oh, crude oil hit a three-month low today; that’s good to hear, right?) That combined with the ever prevailant force of fansubs have more or less forced anime companies to take this route, but come on… should that make things cheaper, not more expensive? You’re ditching the fancy box and extra features and just putting the thing up for download — why does that cost the consumer more than buying something physical? Just doesn’t make sense.

It kind of reminds me of all the stuff airlines are trying to do now to break even, except backwards. Instead of charging you now for things they’ve given away free in the past, they’re not giving you the extras at all and making you pay more anyway! I don’t get it, do you? Sometimes I feel bad about not taking advantage of the legal digital downloads that are currently available — after all, companies need to be reassured that this is indeed what their consumers want — but aside from the fact that I own neither use iTunes nor own a PS3, there’s no way I’d ever pay that much for so little. I’m a cheapskate and rarely even buy DVDs, why would I take less and pay more?

Maybe I really should go see Mr. Nunokawa after all. Maybe he could answer some of these questions. Except his company isn’t among the ones pulling these weird stunts. D’oh.

It seems like almost immediately after I made my post about upcoming anime live action movies, I read an article in the Times about the mad rush of superhero comic movies and the idea that their popularity may be just about ready to peak. It definitely makes sense. After all, there have been well over a dozen comic book adaptions in the last several years. Many of them have been very, very successful, like the entire Spider-Man franchise, Iron Man, and most recently, The Dark Knight. Others were epic box office failures, like Catwoman and Elektra (I know, we were trying to forget those two even existed, right?). It’s been quite a mixed bag, but the high end is very, very high. I guess when comic movies are breaking record after record, people are going to start to think it’s too much of a good thing. It’s gotta end somewhere, right?

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With three ridiculously popular Death Note and the NANA live actions still in recent memory, it seems like everyone and their mom is making live action adaptations of anime, including some by American companies. The Dragonball movie’s finally got a confirmed release date in 2009, and Fox has just confirmed having acquired the rights to a Cowboy Bebop live action, not to mention that there are rumors floating around about an American adaptation of Death Note (do we really need more?), though I’ve forgotten where I read this. As well, both TOKYOPOP and Viz have recently restructured to include a new media branch that will supposedly focus on pitching properties to Hollywood. I find all of this somewhat surprising considering Speed Racer’s abysmal failure (though I don’t think it really deserved to bomb as badly as it did), but I’m curious — if even one of these live actions manages a mild success in the US, could that open the gates for many, many more, just as 2000′s X-Men and 2002′s Spider-Man seemed to have opened the floodgates for endless comic book adaptations?

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Maybe I’m just picky, but even though I highly support the proliferation of both subbed and dubbed digital releases, I really wish there was some consistency in where all they’re releasing this madness.

FUNimation has a YouTube channel that it’s using to post previews and promos, but they’ve also said that they’re going to have full episodes on there, probably three episodes or less for some series. Now they have a deal with Sony to release titles exclusive to the PS3 online store, not to mention the exclusive release of the new BONES title. I’m assuming these titles will all be subbed. Elsewhere, iTunes has added a good bit of Viz’s dubbed Naruto and Bleach, as well as all of Death Note. And let’s not forget various deals and ideas Crunchyroll has made with and is pitching to Japanese companies. Am I the only one overwhelmed by the scatteredness of all these options?

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So I’ve been writing reviews for a long time, sometimes for websites, sometimes for no reason other than to satisfy my own obsessive compulsive ways. I had a brief stint years ago writing reviews for Kiji-Anime.com before they folded, but other than that, most of my stuff has been self-published in my personal journals and websites like TOKYOPOP.com and MAL. I was wondering if there’s really a difference in standards between casual reviews and “professional” reviews in magazines and news sites aside from the obvious stuff like tone and grammar. Maybe professionals should be more objective, but I think it’s kind of funny that there’s such a strong general belief that reviews should be as objective and unbiased as possible when a review is essentially the exact opposite — it’s an opinion, what the reviewer thinks of the reviewed work intended to give the reader an idea of what someone else thinks.

What people probably deem as objectivity is just a reviewer’s ability to explain and justify his assertions. Or, it could just be that the way some people write make it exceedingly obvious when they’re emotionally invested in a work and those are easier to pick from the crowd. This is especially true for anime and manga reviews because fandom is so prevalent in our subculture. It’s really hard to write with an objective tone for a series you really, really like, especially if you’ve just seen it and are cruising along on that fandom high. But I wonder, is that really so bad? Clearly if you like the series that much, you’re going to write a positive review regardless, but should your apparent enthusiasm take away from your analysis if you’re still able to provide reasons for why you liked it so much?

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