A weekly look into American otaku culture

I’ve had a running theme with this blog over how disgusted I am with anime fans who only watch illegal downloads, and how I wish anime companies would look for a more creative way of reaching out to this market. So when ADV quietly announced their new Anime Network online streaming video service, I thought it was best news to come from the industry since the launch of the Tokyopop’s “Authentic Manga” line.

I’ve been enjoying the service for about a month now, and last week sent out an honest email to ADV on how I think the company can improve on it:

Great service you’re offering. Since I do not have cable service at my house, and since I only use a Mac computer, my choices are very limited when it comes to viewing TV content legally over the internet. I rely heavily on NBC’s Hulu.com and the Adult Swim Fix streaming service. As a devoted anime fan, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you’re offering a similar service.

Based on my experience with these other services, here are the things I notice are missing from your service. I feel that these are huge problems that can dissatisfy the user and drive him away forever. They should be fixed ASAP.

1) You need a full screen mode. Keep all the ads in, but if you’re going for a market of people used to watching anime on their computer, no one wants to be restricted to such a small part of their screen.

2) Episode needs to auto-play after commercial break. The user starts the episode and then sits back to enjoy it. Can you imagine how annoyed they get when they have to get up half-way through the episode to click on the “play” button again? Makes us even more pissed off about ads… (-_-)…

Now here is the long-term fix that you should implement on the next version of your player:

3) Dub and subtitle support! Like a DVD, your flash animation should incorporate a video stream, two language tracks (English and Japanese), and a subtitle overlay. This would put you far above what normal fansubs can offer, and win over so much more of the market you’re aiming for.

Again, I love the service you are offering, and I think it could be highly successful if you fix these problems I’ve noticed with it.

Days after I sent this email, ADV makes a huge announcement of a relaunch of the service with the promise to make brand-new shows available for free. They’re using the newest Studio Gainax show, Gurren-Lagann, as their flagship title.

So how much does this relaunch improve on the first iteration of the service? Well, in my email, I suggested two easy fixes and one slightly more difficult fix. Did they fix them?

Easy fix #1 - Nope, there is still no full screen mode.
Easy fix #2- Nope, you still gotta manually press “play” again
Difficult fix #3- Actually, yes! Sort of…

Gurren-Lagann is subtitled, but the crazy thing is that it’s soft-subtitle! That means that the user has the option of turning the subtitles on or off via a button in the control panel. This is a unique function that you don’t normally find in flash video players or even in most fansubs. But this is the kind of innovation that can pursued the illegal download to switch over to legit methods.

There is currently no dual-audio support for Lagann, but I’m sure that is because it has not been fully dubbed yet. The subtitling proves that someone over at ADV has the ability to create a flash video player that’s not just another Youtube clone. I can only hope that we start seeing some dual audio content pop up on the service very soon.

So kudos to ADV for sticking to their streaming service and finally bringing some innovation to the industry. There are still some easy fixes that should be made as soon as possible, but they are still on the right path to success anyway. I hope to anime fans embrace this new service so that more advancements can be to this wonderful medium.

My favorite “manga series only available in Japan without a chance in hell of making it over to America” is now going to be released in America. I am thrilled but still a little skeptical on this news.

Futari H is the centerpiece of Katsu Aki’s career. You might know this artist from his other releases in America, mainly Psychic Academy and the Escaflowne manga, but they just fail to compare to the success of Futari H. With 34 volumes of the manga out right now in Japan, H is still going strong in its monthly serialization in Young Animal magazine.

Futari H is the story about the sex life of a newlywed couple. They are both age 26 and still virgins when they become married, and so they must work together to figure out the surprisingly complicated procedure that is intercourse.

Unlike what many would call “hentai” manga, Futari H looks at sex through a very realistic view. It deals with the problems one will encounter in the act which often get overlooked in other adult comics. For example, the man struggles with premature ejaculation early on in the story. The book fills itself with tips and suggestions on how to improve one’s sex life while also listing statics such as the ratio of age in relations to frequency of intercourse.

Quite simply, this book teaches the reader the ins-and-outs (pun intended) of sex while still having a sweet, funny, and very erotic story. It is a quality title unlike any other manga out there, which is why it has become so popular in Japan and is a personal favorite of this blogger. So I am excited to know that this title will be making its way to America. But is America ready for it?

If you notice in the Amazon listing, Tokyopop is renaming the title “Manga Sutra”, which I think is a wise move on their part. The name Futari H is a play on the Japanese word for masturbation, which is why the title can never be translated into English. I’ve always said it can be translated as “sexurbation”, but that doesn’t sound good, does it? “Manga Sutra” is a great way of telling the audience that the comic is more of a guide to sex instead of just being pornography.

What isn’t going to be good, however, is the backlash that is going to come with releasing this title in the US. The reason why I said this story would never make it to America is because Americans cannot handle sex that well. While it would be okay to have an insanely violent comic imported to America, a sexual comic could only be released in some adult book store. I wonder if big-named bookstores like Borders and Barnes & Noble will refuse to carry the book since it is so explicitly about sex. If these books are not sold in the same location as other Tokyopop titles, then it is bound for failure.

Perhaps the price tag is some indication on how this title will be treated differently from others. Amazon lists the book at $19.99, about double the price of a normal Tokyopop title. Hopefully this will mean that each volume of the US release will be actually be comprised of two volumes of the Japanese release. This could be a very good plan to cut out a 34+ release schedule to only 17+ volumes. Or maybe the books will be bound in some kind of black hard-cover, adding to the illusion of it be being a “sexual bible” like the Karma Sutra.

However, the price increase could also be because Tokyopop is anticipating low sales of the title, and they need to increase the price for it to become profitable. Having a book not sold at Borders, being twice as expensive as a normal book, and knowing that there is at least a 30-volume commitment to the series will kill this release even before it hits the shelves.

I am very worried about this release. It could be revolutionary and show America how manga can actually be used to teach serious material. At a recent job interview, my interviewer was telling me how the best business education book he ever read was in manga format. Having a sex guide manga could be a huge success.

On the other hand, this could just be another great manga title that will just fall into obscurity because America just wasn’t ready for it. You can bet that I will be keeping an eye on what Tokyopop says and how it handles the release of this title through out the rest of the year.

Here’s hoping that they make the right choices.

Reuters recently reports on how the American film “Babel” is currently creating a stir in Japan. The film shows a series of events from around the world and how they are all connected in some way or another. One of the stories takes place in Japan, and examines the story of a deaf mute schoolgirl. The role provided an oscar nomination to the Japanese actress, and so her performance was heavily anticipated when the film was released last week in her native country.

But with in the first couple of days, there were 15 reported cases of nausea caused from watching the film. The scene in question involves the Japanese girl going to a dance club. The scene lasts for a minute and involves a light strobing effect to show the chaos with in the dance club. This scene has forced the film’s distributors to provide warnings on the movie’s website and on the film’s movie posters.

The film has been shown in over 40 different countries, and yet Japan is the only nation to have reported difficulty with watching the film.

Why is Japan the only country with this problem?

My guess is that the Japanese still fear the effects from the Pokémon Shock.

For those of you that don’t know, the Pokémon Shock is an event from ten years ago in which strobing effects from an episode of Pokémon caused hundreds of reported cases of nausea and epileptic seizures. Since the event, anime has been shown with a warning message advising the viewer to watch the show in a well-lit room. Animators have also ceased with using all forms of strobing effects in their shows.

Yet the recent uproar over “Babel” is a clear indication that the Japanese still fear the affects that modern visual media has over the human body. While they can no longer blame anime or video games, the dance club scene provided the perfect placebo for getting everyone sick to their stomach again. Given the fact that the film has never had any problems before, it is ridiculous to start saying that it has always been dangerous.

But as ridiculous as it is, I do recall having the same uneasy fear when I saw the dance club scene when the film came out in America last year. In fact, when I watch any pre-shock anime featuring strobing effect, I do wonder if it is possible to get a seizure from watching it. Looks like I still fear the shock as well. But that is a shame, because the strobe effect is probably one of the coolest things you will ever see on film. That’s why it was used in “Babel”.

The Pokémon Shock is something that killed a little bit of the creative potential in all of Japanese anime. I only hope that “Babel” doesn’t provide the catalyst for killing amazing visual effects in cinema as well.

It’s funny how three bloggers have already reported on horror stories that come with purchasing the 2nd volume of the Ichigo Marshmallow manga that was recently released by Tokyopop in the US. I too can verify my uneasiness at my hometown Borders when I had to present this book to the cashier.

The main problem is one image on the back cover with the character Miu from the series. She is in a two-peice bathing suit and licking the tip of a water pistol. This image gives off a feeling of being child pornography, and we fear that a young male purchasing such a book would be judged as a pedophile from the cashier and those around him.

And yet not a single cashier really notices the content on the cover. All they look for is the barcode to scan and that’s it. There is no second glances. There is no jugdement. All this worry and accusations are only in our head. So why has this fear run so universally among all of us who have bought this book?

I think the reason why we have this worry is because we actually love the cover so much. We don’t love it for some kind of pornographic reason. We love it because it is a beautifully designed cover with adorable images. The faded plaid blue background perfectly compliments the cute images of the Ichigo girls. I personally feel that this is the prettiest manga cover I’ve seen in a long time.

And yet we feel guilty about loving this design, because we grow up believing that the only thing a guy would ever want is sex. So to be attracted to an image of a female must automatically be sexual in nature, and to be attracted to an image of a girl must automatically make you a pedophile.

But what if it was a woman who bought this manga? Would anyone ever accuse her being pedophiliac? No, because it’s understandable that a woman enjoying images of cute children is just a sign of her maternal nature, and this is just a sign of a healthy biological clock. As hard as it is to believe, men feel the exact same way.

We love the girls of Ichigo because we want them to be our children. It plays off our desire and longing for fatherhood. Our attraction is not a desire to ruin childhood innocence through lust and sex, but to protect their innocence through love and compassion.

And yet this completely natural desire is considered unnatural to single men in our world today. It is believed that the only thing that single men should care about is getting laid at this age, and so any fascination that he may have about children must be pedophilia. Since we don’t have much support defending against that assumption, we begin to fear that maybe society is right, and that we do have some unnatural sexual desire for children.

But that’s just not the case. The image of Miu with the water gun is precious because she is just a cute kid in a cute swimsuit playing around. There is nothing sexual about that. Yet we love this picture, and we love to look at it. And so we start to worry that maybe this attraction is some hidden pedophiliac desire like everyone says it should be. But the truth is she’s just a cute kid!

So when is it okay to start wanting children? When should a man admit to wanting to become a family man? When does our culture say that this desire to want kids becomes non-sexual? Is it only after marriage?

That’s bullshit.

So my fellow anime fans, please try not to feel guilty about loving stories and images of cute little girls. The attraction you feel towards these characters is completely natural as it is only a longing for fatherhood. There is nothing wrong or sexual with that. We need more then just sex to continue the human race, we need parental love to ensure that those children survive.

So while you are still single and this desire is not yet accepted, then just grin and bare the “pedo” assumption that will happen. But if you’re clever enough, you might actually be able to use this to get a serious girlfriend (of very legal age, mind you) a lot sooner then the rest of the crowd. After all, at a certain point, girls will be only interested in those guys who want children. And your early acceptance of that fact will make you a prime candidate in no time.

When I think about my weekend up here in Boston this year, I guess it can only be summed up into one word: different. Every little aspect of the convention experience seemed a little off this time around. It’s like having that little voice in the back of your head saying, “No, this ain’t right, something is very, very wrong here.” Was it a change in my personal situation and attitude? Possibly. But I think that it’s the change within the industry and fandom that caused this worry.

The biggest issue that I’ve been talking about all weekend is the fact that only three anime companies were present this year. If you go back to the Anime Boston of two years ago, you will see a much brighter picture. All the birds of the industry, from the tiny Synch-Point to the giant Bandai, couldn’t wait to strut their newly developed plumage to the crowd of onlookers. All the companies were snatching up titles left and right. Some of them even announced 5 titles that year! If there was a golden time for anime, that was it, and they were living it up for everything that they could squeeze out of it.

Last year, the companies returned to the stage, but many came empty handed. The pretty feathers from the year before were now dull. Everyone started to tremble as they saw sales not growing at the rate they needed to in order to survive. The only thing they could hope for at the time was to be saved by a couple of little ninjas, who were about to make their way over to the US with in a couple of months.

But the little ninjas didn’t save them. Only three companies came back north this spring, which left many to wonder what happened to the rest of the flock. One of them had died right before the journey, and the rest must have been too sick to even try. One show, no matter how popular it is, cannot save an entire industry. If that was the case, then what one show sparked the golden age of three years ago? Pokemon? Cowboy Bebop? Inu Yasha?

None of them caused the boom, it was the new, innovative ideas that sparked it. It was the fact that you could watch mature anime every Saturday night on Cartoon Network. It was the fact that you could either listen to your anime in Japanese or English all on the same disk. It was the fact that you could go to your local bookstore and discover the awesome sensation of reading something backwards.

But these changes came about 4 years ago, and nothing has changed since that time. Yes, many companies came in and joined the party, but no one brought anything new that wasn’t there before. Did the fans finally get sick of this anime thing? Did it completely die off like every other fad of the past?

Well, if fans had gotten sick of it, then why are these conventions seeing increased attendance records year after year? Anime Boston alone roughly sees a linear increase of 2,000 people every year. That means that attendance was actually the lowest during the “golden age” of anime, and is at it’s highest right now during the slump! Anime is not losing their fans. We’ve been sticking with it the whole time.

I think the problem with the industry right now is that anime is no longer a fad, it has become a part of our modern day pop-culture. That boom from four years ago was actually the point in time when that change happened. As the snobbish, college-aged anime bloggers that we are, I think that we often forget just what importance making an anime “mainstream” in the US really is. We somehow think that having something dubbed over takes away what makes anime anime. And then we use this bullshit reasoning to justify downloading “pure” fansub anime without paying a dime for it. But if it wasn’t for the work of the US anime companies making these titles mainstream, then how the hell would you ever discover anime in the first place?

The truth is that it is only us, the fansub community, that gave up on anime.

Looking at the audience at this year’s convention reminded me that “true” anime fans were still alive and living well in the world today. Since the event was held a month later then usual, most of the college “fansub” crowd had gone home for the summer, leaving only the innocent high school kids free to not be persecuted for still loving Adult Swim anime. And instead of putting up a snobbish attitude at the genre and criticizing it, they embraced it with loving admiration. We were all these fans at one point, most of us during the golden age. And so the golden age never went away, the same fans are still around. While many were lost to the evils of fan-subbing, more came up to fill their shoes.

So as more and more of these companies start to die off, many will ask “How do we make anime popular again?” However, that is impossible to answer because anime never stopped being popular. It’s just as more fans enter the mainstream, many of the previous fans enter the underground. So I think the issue that truly needs to be asked is “How do we win back the fansub community?” That is what ADV has been trying to figure out for the past year, coming up with little schemes that will hopefully lead to that break-through innovation that will win us back for good. I’ve been very opening supporting them and their efforts, and I am fully confident that they can do it.

I went to this convention with a slight motive: I wanted to tell the companies, particularly ADV, on what I think is the key to winning back the fansubers. The reason why the fansub community is doing the illegal downloading are all the same reason why we all turned to Napster back at the turn of the century - it’s easy, free, and offers a much larger variety of options then what’s on store shelves. Apple realized that the satisfying these conditions and just changing the “free” to “very affordable”, they can actually turn to profit for the record industry. And so they were to win back the Napster community with their iTunes service.

I believe the same can be done with fansubbers.

And so my question to the industry was meant to get them to start thinking about this concept, “What are your plans beyond DVD? Blu-Ray? HD-DVD? Downloads?” I didn’t really care about the Blu-Ray, HD-DVD part. I was well aware that they were never going to touch that subject at all. But I was hoping that they would realize that not only were those two formats dead to them, but so was DVD. Fansubs and bittorrents killed the potential anime DVD market. The true answer in that equation was downloads. Media Blasters shunned the idea, and I’m not surprised. I have a feeling that they will soon be in the same unemployment line as CPM any day now. But ADV answered the question as if online was the next step in their plan to “come out on top”, as Dave puts it. The company has already been experimenting with bittorrent promotions and video podcasts. And at the convention, he was dropping hints that “we will soon be able to get anime to the fans a lot faster then before.”

I would keep a close eye on ADV over the next year. I have a feeling they’ll find a way to change the entire fansub community very soon.

There seems to be quite a lot of buzz around the internet and news sites lately about a “boom” in otaku in Japan. When the Densha Otoko phenomenon hit Japan, it showed the nerds that it’s okay to be nerds. As more and more otakus started hitting the streets, many once hidden aspects of the otaku culture, like maid cafes, had started going mainstream. But while this boom has had a positive effect on allowing nerds to come out of their shells, I feel that it’s also bringing a lot of negativity that could very well put them back in them.

I admit to being an otaku. I have a pretty extensive collection of Japanese comics and anime. I have a very good knowledge on subject, and love to talk deeply about it. My laptop has a constant rotation of anime desktop wallpapers, and I wear a tiny Shinobu pin on the collor of my jacket. Hell, I even have an ex-girlfriend cosplaying on the back cover of an otaku documentary DVD.

But still, even though I am otaku, I really don’t believe that I am as antisocial as the common perception of otaku is. I feel that anime is my hobby and not my life. When I make new friends, I never talk about anime to them until they bring it up. And often they are quite surprised that I have so many of these damn books and never mentioned it to them before. That’s because I feel that there’s nothing worse then an enthusiast going on and on about something that you don’t care about. When I encounter an otaku who seems to only want to talk about anime, I always think, “Why doesn’t this guy get a life?” Even if I my body language is telling them, “I don’t really care,” they’re so lost in their own little world to notice. That kind of otaku annoys me, so I try my best not to become one like that.

Of course, many of you are probably saying, “what a hypocrite! All he does on this website is go on and on about anime! He’s the one that needs to get a life!” But you see, that’s beauty of the internet. I’m not forcing any of you guys to read this. If you don’t care about what I have to say, you would have stopped reading this a long time ago. Trust me, I’m not like this in real life. This is just my hobby. So I guess that I do hide that one aspect of myself in the real world.

But recently I have lost a friend who felt I was “too otaku” for him, which really confused me and upsets me. We were both taking Japanese together for about a year. Now he wasn’t that much of an anime fan, but he did see this website and really liked it. We even went into NYC one day for sushi, and I showed him around all the Japanese bookstores as I bought $60 worth of untranslated comics for myself. But I was never that good with speaking the language, and when he tried to hold a Japanese conversation with me, I could never understand him or respond. This got him really frustrated, and he started to talk down to me like he was better then me. Towards the end of the semester, he started making derogatory comments about white americans trying to learn the language only because they were otaku, and how much they sucked at it. While he never mentioned me directly, I knew he was talking about me. He honestly thought that I was learning the language for all the wrong reasons. However, I could never understand what exactly were his “right” reasons for learning the language. While we wasn’t an anime otaku like me, he was a J-pop otaku. But still, I was forced to have to ignore him for the rest of the semester.

Though the ironic thing is that he actually gave up on the language and is now n longer taking the classes. Meanwhile, this white otaku is still doing it to the bitter end. (^_^)

But this did leave me to wonder why was I working so hard to learn the language? Was it only because of anime? But reflecting on my life, I’ve realized that I’ve always loved Asian culture ever since I was a child. And since Japanese seemed to be the most useful to my Nintendo-raised mind, I’ve decided to primarily focus on that. I seem to remember that the first time I said I wanted to learn Japanese was back in middle school. That was many years before I was an anime fan. And while at the moment Japanese is the only asian language I’m studying, I also take some time to find out more about Chinese and Korean language and culture.

But still, my friend putting me down for being otaku did start to concern me, and when this “Otaku Boom” started to happen, there was also a lot of negative attention that came of it. A female manga artist, Mimei Sakamoto, recently lashed out on otaku’s and the recent moé craze.

“This fetish you call ‘moe’ is a pedophiliac fetish and is nothing more than perversion. It’s not really something you should be gushing over. In other countries, they’d call what you’re fantasizing over ‘child pornography’ and you’d all be arrested. I’m ashamed that these ‘otaku’ who are perpetual criminals have entered the mainstream and started an otaku boom.”

I have taken great offense to this as I am a huge fan of moé myself, and hate it when people perceive it as being for pedophiles. I’ve made it very clear a long time ago what separates moé from child porn, but other recent news have further driven this misconception into the public’s eye. She then also informs us:

“… recently I’ve seen all these dorky guys walking around in thick glasses and checkered shirts and it pains my heart to think that they may be hoping to meet some pretty girl who’s going to fall in love with them. Sorry guys, the chances of that happening are zero […] All the world is going around talking about maid cafes and stuff and making these so-called otaku look good. But people must realize that these guys are simply men incapable of recognizing reality and are incapable of being in a normal loving relationship.”

In which Sakamoto demonstrates that she has the same ignorant view that the general public has about nerds ability to love. Based on my experience, I feel that otakus probably make incredible lovers. Otakus are passionate and very romantic. If the a girl is like a princess to an otaku, then he will use that creative imagination of his to make her feel like one. But since everyone’s opinion on us is so shot to begin with, girls just don’t give us a chance. This makes the nerd’s self confidence so low that they can’t even try, so they crawl into their shy shell.

And that’s probably why Densha really sparked something big for the otaku culture. It did tell the world the truth about how if you break through the otaku’s shy shell, there is actually a sweet and sensitive lover there for any girl. And this message and mainstream attention allowed the nerds to gain some of that self-confidents again, and we no longer felt quite the need to hide our nerdiness as much as before. This is real progress, and I think it’s a wonderful thing. But if the backlash like Sakamoto’s comments continue, nerds will have to go back into hiding.

But so far that’s been Japanese otaku, what about the Americain ones? I guess with in our country, it’s really too new of an idea for the gerneral public to have an opinion on it. In fact, the media seems a little fascinated with the idea, so it’s actually a positive thing from our point of view. In fact, the only people I honestly see hating on the otaku are those that are otaku themselves. This would include my friend from Japanese class, the numerous posters on 4chan and other internet message boards, and myself from the comments I made earlier about the people who annoy me.

But to me, it’s really looked down upon in Japan. A recent video from Japan about American anime fans shows a very negative view as they make fun of us trying to learn their culture and language. I recall reading an article from a Japanese man on how he has to laugh to himself every time he seen an American otaku on the train in Japan. This man feels that this is the common perception of us in that country. In fact, I’ve probably only met two Japanese people in my whole life that actually took my hobby seriously.

This greatly concerns me because I am planning on becoming an ESL teacher in Japan a year from now. For just being an American, I’m already going have to face the racis- er, I mean nationalism - from the Japanese people for being a 外人 (gaijin, “outsider”). But I’ve also come to understand that an ESL teacher is a pretty prestigious position to have. I don’t want the fact that I am an otaku to take that away. After two very intense years of studying a foreign language, I don’t want to have the kind of disrespect towards me that was shown to the other otakus in that video who also honestly tried to learn the language.

So in conclusion, it’s hard out here for an otaku. While the recent boom of otaku culture has been good in allowing us to come out of our shells, it also has been showing a lot of negativity towards the culture. The public still will not take us seriously, and the problem is even worse for American otakus.

Personally, it’s gotten so bad that I am going to have to hide my otaku-ness even more then I do now. I’ve already lost one friend because of it, and I don’t even want to think about how it will affect my stay in Japan. If I don’t drop it, I don’t think I’ll ever be taken seriously.

How messed up is that? (-_-)

Japanese is really such a fascinating language to me. I’ve been studying it since last summer (i.e. when I stopped blogging so much). But one of the things that I’ve been grappling with the language is how exactly to I refer to myself in the first person. The textbook version of “I” is watashi (私) which you will very often hear noobies use when they’re just starting off with the language. But if you take the time to listen to what’s being said in normal conversation, you will very rarely hear the word.

The fact is that watashi is only used by females and males in a very formal situation. You’ll find girls using the contraction atashi (あたし) quite often. But when it comes to men in normal conversation, you have a choice of two different words. They are boku (ぼく) and ore (オレ). So if you’re a male, when exactly is it appropriate to use either one of the three choices given to you? That is a question that I have asked every single one of my Japanese teachers, and none of them could give me a clear and consistent answer. So after a lot of observations (with anime, of course ) on what certain characters use in certain situation, I have come up with what I choice to use when I talk about myself. I chose to use boku, and it’s a word I’ve actually grown to love in the past couple of months. Let me tell you why.

First of all, I feel the word tends to have a certain level of prestige and class attached to it. It’s like telling the world that you are male, and proud of it. When I look at the kanji, 僕, I see a certain hint of royalty to it, like a man with a crown and other jewelry. But at the same time, this also gives off a hint of snootiness and egotism. When the title character of 絶対少年 (Absolute Boy) meets the local boys for the first time, they begin mocking his choice of the word. They tease him by calling him, “Mr. boku.” The boy is not ashamed of this, and carries on ignoring the insult.

But boku also denotes a sense of youth and innocence. Ichimaru-sensei, the husband in the series おくさまは女子高生 (My Wife is a High School Girl), is 25, a High School teacher, and married to one of his students. That kind of character would often be considered a sex fiend, and the authors do their best to make his character as innocent and lovable as possible. He’s very soft spoken, and uses “boku” when he talks to his young wife. This give the viewer the impression that even if he’s 8 years older then his wife, he’s still on the same level with her. He talks as if he was a high school boy himself.

But the most powerful example, and the one that really got me thinking about this word, is Shuji from 最終兵器彼女 (She, the Ultimate Weapon). As he narrates the story, he uses boku quite freely. Yet when he speaks out-loud to any of the characters, he uses ore to give a more cool and nonchalant attitude about things. That is.. until he lets this slip out to his adorable girlfriend Chise:

Chise: “This is all your fault!”
Shuji: “Why?”
Chise: “I didn’t want to go out with you anyway. I just to try it out and not be so scared about it. And Akemi already knew that I liked you, so she told me to go for it. And then you gave me the okay about it! You were the one that said yes!”
Shuji: “Most guys would say yes.”
Chise: “Why?”
Shuji: “When a cute girl asks you out, how could I (boku) not-?”
[Chise looks startled]
Shuji: “Ah, I (boku) mean that I didn’t even want to do this until you asked me first!”
Chise: “You said it again..”
Shuji: “What did I say?!?”
Chise: “‘Boku’…”
[Shuji turns red, Chise giggles]
Shuji: “Uh, it’s nothing. It’s something I said a lot as a kid, okay?”
Chise: [laughing] “Sorry, but Shuji-chan is soooo cute!”
Shuji: [angry] “Moron! You’re the cute one!”

But Chise’s teasing did a good point, and this is the real reason why I chose to use this word:

Boku is cute! (^_^)

Wether it be a little boy trying to sound older, or a young man trying to sound younger, boku brings about it a sense of boyish cuteness that’s hard to do with any other word. In かしまし ～ガール・ミーツ・ガール～ (Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~), the male protagonist is a very sensitive and feminine boy. His use of the word showed the audience that he was nice and gentle, unlike most other boys of his age. But after he is transformed into a girl, he still uses boku to refer to himself, and he uses it quite often. But now it has a new meaning to it, mainly that he’s trying to establish that he is still a boy inside the female body.

But the secret behind it is a little bit of fan-service that may not be widely used, but still packs quite a punch. You see, no matter how cute it is to have a boy say, “boku,” it simply cannot match how adorable it is to have a girl use it! This character absolutely melts my heart every time she uses the word, and it has a similar affect inside the anime as well. In a recent episode, the characters go out to the beach. A couple of guys, unaware of her transformation, begin hitting on her. She becomes very shy and timid, and slips out a “boku” when she speaks. “Ah,” says of the boys, “She said, ‘boku’! That just makes her all the more cuter!” And it’s true, very true.

So that is the reason why I use the word myself. While at 21 I might be considered a little too old for it, it’s definitely not unheard of for a man my age to use it. I feel that it is a statement of my personal character. While a six foot tall, blonde-hair American might be a little intimidating to the average Japanese person, I want to convey to them that I am very kind and gentle in my nature. Can you believe that one word can tell someone so much about your personality?

So for all you other guys out there who study the language, what are your thoughts on this topic? What word do you use? And to the ladies, what do you think the word tells you about the guy who uses it?

Three months ago, I wrote an editorial on the story of a man being convicted of possessing anime child pornography. This was the result of the PROTECT act of 2003, which classifies fictional visual representations of children having sex to be illegal. I feel that this law is ludicrous on the grounds of no crime is ever truly committed in the world of fantasy that is anime and manga. Do you arrest a person for assisting with a murder if they watch a horror film? Of course not. If the characters don’t exist in real life, then there are no real victims. You simply can’t lock someone away for watching anime!

But sadly, they just did, and as ANN reports today, it’s for 20 years. Now, the guy was also sentenced for having actual child porn (you know, the kind with non-animated children) on his computer, and so it is justified that he face whatever punishment is coming to him. But they made it very clear that the anime was one of the reasons for his sentence. The US department of Justice even proudly declared in it’s press release that his “… conviction for receiving cartoons is the first conviction under the statute that was not based on actual photographs of children.” Convicted for non-real photos… why aren’t they seeing their own hypocrisy?!?

This is a sad day not only for anime fans, but for anyone who likes fictional works of art. Fiction exists because it’s not restricted by the laws of State or science. I don’t support child pornographic anime, but I can’t believe that someone can be arrested and sent to jail for it! Doesn’t it scare you? What is that saying to the world about America’s idea of freedom? How can we look down on a war over political cartoons in the Middle East when we just sent a guy to jail over fake kiddy porn?

This is not good… this is not good at all…

ANN reports of a man found guilty of downloading real-life child pornography as well as anime images portraying such acts. This has been the first time that someone has been convicted under the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT) act of 2003. According to ANN, the act states “computer images that are indistinguishable from real children engaging in sexually explicit conduct as child pornography, while simple drawings which are easily distinguishable from real children are not considered child pornography.” Apparently the judge felt that anime children were no different then real live children.

This brings up a taboo among the anime community about portraying children in sexual situations in works of anime and manga. It is a debate over artistic freedoms and personal moralities. I, for one, don’t support such material at all. I’m into shows that focus on children in a non-sexual loving way. I become uneasy when these shows have these underage (17 and younger, by American standards) characters in adult situations. Such examples for the frequent nudity of Chika-chan, a girl from “Ai Yori Aoshi” in her mid-adolescence, or the very explicit sexual fantasies involving the high school protagonist of “My Wife is a High School Girl”. I love both of these series to death, and yet I personally can’t shake off the thought of that teenaged sex should not be watched. If it’s like this for mid to post-adolescence children, I can’t even imagine how pre-adolescence sex in anime would be tolerated.

Such fear is also evident in the US anime industry as well. With all the hentai that is imported to this country, very few, if any, feature underage characters having sex. Since PROTECT is still not completely clear at the moment as to what’s acceptable, companies don’t want to risk it. Such an example would be the US release of the anime OVA series, “Kite.” When this blood, gore, and sex fest was first released in the US, it came with everything but the sex. You see, in America, violence is tolerated much more easily then sex, and so the show was release with just a “mature” rating instead of the “adult” it would have received with the sex added. Upon the demands of the fans, a “Director’s Cut” version was later release that include the sex scenes. Well, that is, all the sex scenes besides one. That’s because they feared that since it was an explicit scene showing a mid-adolescent girl being raped, they would be selling child pornography. It wasn’t until very recently that they released the show with the controversial scene included.

And yet the most awkward example of this would be a warning label I once saw on the packaging of a hentai video. It read, “Though the characters in this video appear to be very young, they are in fact age 18 or over.” This stupid warming does bring up a point. You can say that one of your female characters is 10 but draw her with full breasts and hips. You can also, like this one show did, say that your female character is 18, but flat cheated and child-like. Either way, these characters are not real, and therefore have no real age!

So why then would such a thing be prosecuted for legal actions? After all, you can write a novel that talks about under-aged sex. It may receive a lot of negative feedback for it, but never any legal actions against it. No one is arrested for being a potential pedophile for writing or reading such things. So why should visual representation be any different? If you use the pen to write to words or to draw a picture, the fact is that the under-aged characters came from a pen and imagination, no matter how real the images look. Should you be arrested for something that you think about instead of actually doing?

You have to realize that every single law created has been broken in the fantasy world of visual entertainment. If you watch a movie about a serial killer plotting and then hacking his victims to death, does that make you an accomplice to the crime? After all, murder is illegal, right?

Of course not! You can’t be persecuted for fictional events. That’s what the whole “freedom of speech” thing is all about! The only reason why words and ideas should be tried in court is if it threatens or abuses another real-life victim. The reason why child porn is illegal is because in order to show it on a screen, you have to force real-live children to do such acts on camera. This is undoubtedly child abuse, and the law is absolute justified for its existence. But when it’s animated or drawn in a comic, there are no real victims. There is about as much real-life crime being committed from these works as there is in horror films. And yet the double standard of American society accepts the fictional acts of violence over sex any day.

This is an issue that we, the anime fans, must fight for. I don’t condone child pornography in anime or manga, but I’ll be damned if anyone should ban it or make it illegal. The whole reason why I love the medium is because it allows the viewer to escape into a world that is not restricted by the laws of State or science. If you ban the use of one thing in anime, what’s stopping them from banning other things? In this one situation, the guy deserved to be found guilty for supporting the abuse of real life children, but not the fictional ones. PROTECT needs to clarify the difference between reality and fantasy.

Did I mention how much I love the whole Densha Otoko thing? Since I wrote that article, a wonderful website has popped up with one person’s translation of the original 2-ch posts. Check it out here. These posts are so addicting and fun to read. You can see why it has become so popular. I highly recommend you guys check out this site. Maybe it might stir up more interest in the story stateside.

But reading these posts have taught me a lot about the Japanese internet culture, and my interest in it has grown with it. I’ve been surfing around the 2-ch and Futaba Channel boards lately. Of course, it is a bit of learning experience as I encounter Japanese words that I’m sure I’ll never find in class…

“グロ? Gee, I wonder what that is. It sounds cute.”

::clicks::

(o_O)

“AHHHHHHHH!!!!”

So yeah, I’ve also learned that the Japanese are still the biggest perverts in the world.

But back to the topic Densha, I’ve finally been able to get back to watching the TV Drama, and episode 9 is just one piece of otaku eye-candy after the other. Now, I wouldn’t really consider myself too into Japanese girls (Chinese is my thing), but they have managed to put the prettiest Japanese women into this show. This episode starts off with the female lead cosplaying in a maid costume, a little girl’s dress complete with pig-tails, and in PJ’s. It’s cute and all, and the otaku side of me really loves it. But I guess I would still like it better if it was an anime girl doing it over a real Japanese girl. That’s just a sad but true personal preference… (^^;)

But then they had to throw this bomb at me:

（　ﾟДﾟ） 。。。

::faints::

It might not have the same impact without hearing her say it, but it just tugs at your fanboy heart. I think I have a new avatar.

So in summary, I’m starting to realize just how much more otaku I get with every passing day… _|￣|○