Geek Rant Topic 21: Horrifying

When All Else Fails, the only person afraid around here is Mousa The 14

I pose a question: Horror. Why?

I'm seriously asking you here folks, what is it with geeks and horror? Next to Science Fiction and Fantasy it seems the next genres that seem to appeal to our base is Horror and Monster Movies.

Dare I ask why exactly? Why is it whenever the best episodes of Doctor Who come up they're the horror episodes like Midnight where a copycat creature that exists as nothing but a voice that takes your mind by repeating everything you say until it overtakes you and nobody listened to the solutions from the main hero. Or The episode Blink where if you look away from the stone angels statues they'll come alive and kill you. Those are considered some of the best for many reasons but many report to how scary it was.

Then there's zombies. I hate zombies, but normal geeks can't get enough of them. Zombies are so prevalent among geek culture they're bonus content in our military First Person Shooters. And many acclaimed games are horror based or involve zombie apocalypses like Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Left 4 Dead, and so... Much... More....

Want to know a geek's favorite movie? Evil Dead and it's ilk. Favorite movie maker? Sam Raimi. New anime they just got into? High School of the Dead. Favorite writer? None other than our eldritch horror writing non-euclidean maniac known as H.P. Lovecraft. There's so much geek-driven merchandise and tributes and games as tributes to Lovecraft's stories that we have Cthulu plushies! Plushies!

And dare I mention that we have "zombie apocalypse survival guides"? I mean really, of all the novelty items one could create... And yet I've seen it, I've heard it, entire discussions about surviving a possible zombie apocalypse.

I'm a geek, I understand many things, I understand the love for science fiction, mystical creatures, speculation, mythology, astrology, legends, fantasy, Lovecraft (I mean really, Elder gods and The Necronomicon were all his ideas and briliant ones at that), werewolves, vampires, all that stuff, but horror as a genre does not make sense to me.

I'm not ragging on anyone's tastes, I mean not everyone loves superheroes like I do, and I'll never understand the market for a movie like The Expendables, but at some point something stops becoming a personal taste thing and starts becoming a pattern of thought and when you are on the very outside of this pattern of thought, everything within it confuses you and I want answers. Even my own sister is in love with Chiller TV and she's the least geeky geek I know. What. Am. I. Missing?

What does it all have in common? What's the appeal? I'm all about answers and instead I just have questions, there's just too many questions.

Geeks of all walks of life, tell me your secrets: What's with the Horror and zombies?

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination is Your Greatest Power
Mousa The 14

Geek Rant Topic 20: Anime Elitism

When All Else Fails begins, you know Mousa the 14 has an issue with something.

So some time ago in a comics sub forum, a fellow member was inquiring about what sort of American comics should he get his manga reading friend to look into. He said something that made me laugh outrageously loud and you'll see why in a second and if you agree with the statement you'll need to read this article more than you realize. Here's the actual quote....

And, regardless of actual content, she does argue that manga is better than American comics because they're "deep." This from the woman who said she gave up on American books after reading one Batman that she remembers nothing about.

What can I say? I like to think a lot of people are smart, and they probably are, which just makes me wonder how such ignorance could come about.

If I have to say it once, I have to say it a thousand times because some people are just too wrapped up in their own perceived superiority to understand:

Anime and Manga are not inherently superior to any other animated series or comic book. These things are exactly the same things. The exact same media just given different names based on their country of origin. In fact, we in the west shouldn't even be calling Anime and manga the names we've given them. Those are just the Japanese words for them. To them all animation is anime, including our cartoons. And to them, all comics are called manga.

Okay, instead of chastising the people with an elitism/uniqueness complex (even though they need to get their facts straight and get taken down a peg), I may as well come up with a reason why. I mean really, why is there a belief that Japanese comics and cartoons are better?

One possibility is the quality filter, a real life version of Sturgeon's law which states that 90% of everything is crap. When companies license something they tend to want to license things that are good or have a guaranteed audience so usually the anime and manga we see commonly on television or in our bookstores are, more likely than not, the good ones are at least the decent ones. This means in their country of origin there is a whole mess of schlock that we're not seeing. But there could be more to it than just that.

I can sort of understand the perspective of those that may think anime and manga are superior; exotic things can seem all unique and new and fresh. Mainly because they use a completely different set of tropes due to cultural differences, so when you see these tropes that are new to you they may seem all unique and deep. However, if you you watch and read enough or you pay attention you'll realize all that stuff from overseas is as cliche and overused as the stuff here.

Here's a better answer though: different standards. Americans and the Japanese have different standards. What they believe should be aimed towards kids we wouldn't even consider should be for children. The Japanese are not shy about characters being outright perverts, some sexuality, violence, death, stuff like that. In American cartoons, if the moral guardians got a whiff of any of that, the cartoon wouldn't even make the airwaves or get shunted to late nights with the rest of the Adult Swim shlock. And obviously since most anime are based off of manga this is true for manga. In America, once upon a time, superhero comics were the only comics allowed to exist thanks to the moral guardians of the time period believing comics of anything of a more graphic nature woudl be "corrupting the youth" like television before it and video games in the here and now. However with the onset of superheroes being allowed to grow up and other comics slowly and struggling to make it to the forefront, we've had many good, deep, humorous, complex, emotional, and enlightening graphic novels by amazing writers: Grant Morrison, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman (Thus further proving my theory and bias that all the best writers are from the United Kingdom and Ireland), Geoff Johns, Jeff Smith, Chris Claremont, Brian Michael Bendis (My favorite by far, his work on New Avengers and Ultimate Spider-man are amazing.), Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid; Each a genius in their own right you should be reading up. Right. Now.

Now here's another quote from the aforementioned thread when we asked about the girl's tastes in manga:

So, just called her for more info on her tastes—she likes Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, D.Gray-man, Code Geass (the anime, she hasn't read the manga), Ranma ½, and InuYasha (though she did confess it's a bit repetitive.)

Goodness, if this person was looking for "deep" or "complex" or even "meaningful" she picked the worst anime and manga for that argument except for maybe Code Geass (I haven't watched it but it's premise and all the discussion it spawns probably means it's worth something.). Most of that is shlock. Entertaining, funny, even decent, but most definitely shallow shlock. And don't get the wrong idea, I love Ranma 1/2 and Dragonball, but dear lord, at least I don't delude myself into thinking they're more than what they are.

In terms of anime and manga, there is so much shlock it's not even funny. I mean let's take a stab at just the stuff that's well known to people in the west like Dragonball/Dragonball Z, which is basically a fun romp across a magical mythological land with tons of toilet humor. A fighting manga that was almost making fun of itself. In fact, let's take a look at most of the anime and manga that become popular in the west like Bleach, Naruto, Voltron, Sailor Moon, Tokyo Mew Mew, and to a lesser extent, One Piece are all a bunch of Good Guys versus Bad Guys in escalating fights/ monster of the week that boils down to THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP.

Beyblade and Pokemon? You need to be a nice good person that doesn't cheat to win and POWER OF FRIENDSHIP! Ranma 1/2? Mostly bad jokes and characters tied up in obligations they cannot commit to, it's a trashy comedy, a good trashy comedy, but a trashy comedy nonetheless. Digimon Adventure 01? An admittedly deep character study with amazing character development, characterizations, and interactions and while the plot was basic it still was a decent character piece. It's still basically about THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP though.

I mean I'm not the only one who sees this, even major anime and manga fans know about this two. I mean GeekNights occasionally stumbles upon some crud anime. Anime World Order, a major anime podcast with a panel of self-proclaimed experts are all about differentiating the deep and complex from the mediocre from the shlock. The entire premise of the podcast, Dave and Joel's Fast Karate For the Gentlemen, is that they overview bad anime.

I can't believe that it's so hard for people to comprehend that there is no superiority or inferiority in media or country of origin. Anyone with a modicum of intellect can determine that you must observe everything on a case by case, individual basis. Declaring a whole sub-medium as inferior is maddening, horrifying even. It demonstrates a form of closed-mindedness that a trouble sub-culture like geeks do not need.

It's like saying videos on the internet are inherently inferior to videos on television. A lot of videos on the internet are actually amazing (Loading Ready Run) and far better than what's on TV (Jersey Shore) or in the movies (Battlefield Earth).

The moral of the story is quite simple, there is no such thing as a superior medium for entertainment, they all have their positives and negatives and different methods of conveying information. Furthermore, creating a further split by where this media comes from, east and west, is even sillier. One has to understand that 90% of everything is crap in every medium, you just gotta work at finding the 10% in them all.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination is Your Greatest Power
Mousa The 14

Random Musing: The Japanese Scare Me a Little

So I listen to nothing but NPR on the radio and was listening to a reporter talk about a shelter in Nihon after all this earthquake+tsunami+Potential Nuclear Fallout deal (Dear God I feel sorry for these people, I mean a natural disaster triple threat? We may as well have hurled another one of our nukes over these and gotten the exact same effect!).

As I was reading The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I heard something that can only be described as either efficient and reasonable or damn right creepy:

So the reporter was talking about how the people in the shelter were. The shelter was quiet, the people were patient and uncomplaining, and when someone came with food there was no riot and no mad rush. And without instruction, they simply lined up in single file to retreive the food.

This sounds beautiful and shows people being reasonable in times of adversity and seems like the approach to a perfect world. But it was also flipping creepy! I mean it seems a little... not human. I mean seems more like evidence that the people of Nihon are or trying to be a race of robots that scheme to destroy us all with the power of cute. I mean, last I checked humans are less inclined to such behavior to due selfishness and other associated self-preservation measures. I wonder if it's simply the highly conformist society the Japanese are. Would make sense. Still needs to be added to my list of things about Nihon that creep me out along with their thing for Lolis.

Note: I am neither weeaboo nor one of those Nihon haters. I like and dislike different things.

P.S. Think any of our favorite Manga writers have been negatively affected? I mean I assumed so and I guess when you read media from a small archipelago nation that just had major disasters, you have to wonder if your favorite authors are doing okay. You just have to look at the casualty numbers and wonder "Will I ever see the conclusion of One Piece?" That sounds utterly insensitive, but I doubt the first thing on people's minds when they think "Natural disaster in Nihon" is "Oh noes! Tha poor writer! His house! Her family! etc, etc, yadda, yadda". I'm probably wrong and probably write, just noting that we're all only human.

Geek Rant Topic 11: The Fairer Geek

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

Ever notice the geeky activity (i.e. video games, card games, role playing, anime, cartoons, etc) you're most likely to see a high number of women in is anime and manga? Not an objective fact necessarily (though it might be and I just don't know), just an observation. In fact I may see more girls into anime and manga than I go guys. I've been to quite a few anime conventions and the stereotype of fat sweaty guys in sailor moon cosplay (costume play to those not in the loop) is like 1 to 200. Most of the slack is picked up by hordes and hordes of women. They're the male characters, the female characters, the animal characters, The furries(I've only ever seen male fursuiters so far.) everything! The artist's alley tables is filled largely with women, The anime club I ran in high school was primarily female/potentially primarily female (Even though there were more male regulars in the club, there were more girls in the school in general that were anime fans. It was a small school so I could gauge this easily.), and the anime club at the college I'm attending now is primarily female, and my the demographic of my anime-related videos on youtube is primarily female (Assuming they're telling the truth of their sex.).

Anecdotal evidence: it's right and wrong.

Anyhow, I thought this was fascinating because you always hear about how there are less girls in gaming (at least we used to) and there are all these articles on sexism in game, why the games that try to draw in girls are stupid, etc, etc. My dorm is filled to the brim with Magic: The Gathering geeks but not a single one is a girl. This is the same with the anime clubs I've been in. And When I'm in bookstores I see more ladies (though people in general) perusing the manga rather than the section where the Bone and Tintin compilations are. Tabletop RPGs are a different monster, there are definitely ladies in that area. In fact I think the ladies are drawn more towards JRPGs, not sure why, just a thought.

Anyhow, let's assume my observations have a modicum of truth, why are things the way they are? I can think of a few good reasons:

1) Marketing demographics
2) Most geeky activities have always had a "boy's club" exclusionary feel to them. 3) Handsome Men
4) Variety

1) Marketing demographics.
What's the difference between American comic books (Yes, Europe, I see The Beano, Tintin, and Asterix and I love those, but I need to go with what I know here.) and Japanese comic books? Well besides the fact when I say American comics you immediately think Superhero comics, you're more likely to find comic books in Japan that appeal to everyone and every interest. American comics used to do this until the comic code fiasco occurred and effectively purging the comic book scene of almost everything but surreal superhero comics. Nowadays you have tons of superhero comics that overshadow your occasional very good independently made comic. But in Japan, while the shounen (term for young boys) demographic is large, it doesn't necessarily overshadow everything else. I mean, I own a manga that teaches you statistics! There isn't exactly a limit to what is made there (due mostly to cheap production values).

This means there is a larger percentage of stuff, manga and their anime counterparts, geared primarily towards the ladies. In video games their attempts towards getting more girls involved have been a little... sexist. Not all of them are bad shovelware, but most of them are pretty bad stereotypical pink shovelware. That is not how you do it, game industry. You make things more gender neutral or gender inclusive in your games, that's how you draw the ladies in. I mean come on, who in the world is kidding themselves, The Spartans in Halo or the protagonist in any and all first person shooter is a dude. Or games like God of War where, what's this? A male protagonist? Why couldn't the god of war be a chick? Chicks too flimsy? What's that I hear? There's sex scenes and naked ladies in your game? What's wrong with doing a complete reversal? I'm not asking for people to just switch the sex around for all the popular game, I'm saying try to get into what a girl may like in a game without always going stereotype or... doing a cop-out like in pokemon where you just choose "Are you a boy protagonist or a girl protagonist" and the game be exactly identical, men and women experience things differently.

Card games I'm not involved in enough to figure out why it's a sausage fest. But superhero comics. Oh superhero comics... Obviously they're big fat teeanged boy power fantasies, look no further than nerdy loser Peter Parker becoming awesome yet nerdy when he becomes Spider-man and gets all the ladies. You get your muscular manly men and women that look like supermodels with more tracts of land. Gee, such respectful depictions of our fair ladies, I wonder why girls aren't interested. True, some are dressed more modestly and well characterized but really they're more likely to be the male power fantasy's object of desire than a female power fantasy.

2) Most geeky activities have always had a "boy's club" exclusionary feel to them.
Most geeky activities are fairly 'boys only" clubs. For some reason most of the stuff is advertised towards boys while the girls get dolls, fashion, pink, baby care, etc. Totally equal. So obviously for years, women have not been growing up with geeky things geared towards them due to sexist standards that never end.

Most of this is covered in section 1 but additionally, not only have these things been geared towards boys for years, they're hard to get into for people with casual interest, i.e. girls who mostly haven't been given a reason to be interested in thee things to begin with. Video games aren't hard to get into that's more of covered in section one. Everything else has years of continuity and rules. Superhero comic books have years of annoying continuity I'll explain next essay, tabletop RPGs have editions and edition wars, Magic the Gathering have different editions and rules and card types and card colors and for some insane reason people are able to memorize a bazillion of these, and different entry levels for different interests. Like my sister finds even the most basic and self contained fantasy or sci-fi to be "too complex" and I can see each different one as their own thing, but I think she sees it all as a single conglomerate she has to get attempt to understand all of. I mean Elves, orcs, vulcans, dwarves, wookies; to the casual viewer it's all the same to them and if it's not their cup of tea it makes even less sense.

But manga and anime are just single stories, every thing is right there for you like a book and since they're done by a single person (with their assistants) you have consistency unless the author says so. As as stories they have a beginning and an end, simple as that but with all the complexity you need in a story. No easy exclusion.

3) Handsome Men
This was partly a joke, but seriously, our space marines and superheroes are usually rugged male power fantasies, they're not there to look good for the ladies, guys don't know what attract ladies, that's why we suck so much and try so hard. But since it appears some manga writers/artists are women so they know exactly what they're doing and doing it right.

There's just something about the anime and manga art style, specifically of pretty boy that seem to draw girls in. I'd like to see say God of War's Kratos right next to Kyo Kara Maoh's Gwendal in an attractiveness poll and I'm almost willing to bet real money that Gwendal would win by a landslide.

And you know what else is abundant with beautiful men? The Video game equivalent of an Anime: BOOM! Japanese Role Playing Games. Final Fantasy, The Tales series, Even Kingdom Hearts.

So Is this silly? Yes. But does it have merit? Potentially. I suggest a study should be done; handsome men bringing in the ladies into geek oriented things. It's a stupid idea but I'm just spit balling like I always do.

4) Variety
So most card games are rooted in fantasy or sci-fi, same with video games because video games can be outlandish (they have things like dating sims, racing games, some first person shooter, etc, of course, it's the principle of the matter.), superhero comics, the books geeks tend to read and the movies they tend to watch.

Anime and Manga are like every other sort of book only with picture which tells you a lot about it's variety, like the aforementioned one that teaches you statistics. Which means whatever you could be interested in is potentially in that format. Cooking, action, adventure, mystery, romance, magical realism, historic fantasy, it's going to be there, trust me. There are some limitations due to Japan being sort of isolated but it's still a lot of stuff.

So in conclusion, yeah, just something to think about, check around your organizations involving geeky activities, and measure out the guy to girl ratio and get back to me, I'm rather curious about this and this is something you can take a look into too. Obviously things have diversified over the years, that's just the way things go, but these things go slowly so my observations might still be sound.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination is Your Greatest Power
Mousa the 14

Geek Rant Topic 10: Geeky Men Are Not Men

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

What happened to me? College happened! Yeay higher education! This also means I've postponed my "Namco's Embargo" and "Geek Entitlement and General Jerkassery" topics, mostly due to writer's block on the topics. Now, back to the show:

Geeky men are sexless homos. Kind of. Some of us are not, some of us are. Men are allowed to be geeky and still be fully functional members of society simultaneously, even though these qualities tend to almost contradict each other. But any of us who may be insecure, or might have poor social skills, or that unusually high number of us on the net with Aspergers, ADD, OCD, and ADHD (Not me, I'm not trying to be speshul on the net.), not so much. There's just something about this confidence thing that some people can't get enough of. It makes them look like leaders, look reliable and in charge. That's probably why some of them can get away with being jerks: If you're damn confident and charismatic enough, nobody is going to care what a jerk you really are or they'll at least tolerate it.

And of course they get it out of being sure of themselves, these confident men. A belief that they can feel good about themselves and gosh darned it, everyone else should feel good that this person exists. Color me shocked, turned out vinegar attracts more flies than honey becuase those who are insecure enough to be doormats aren't going to get squat. Turns out the movies lie, what a concept. Excuse me while I make a few false dichotomies for your entertainment value:

• Don't hold doors, that's for pansies and losers that let the world walk all over them. Let the people open their own doors.
• Nobody's gonna take you seriously if you say yes. Helping people's for pansies and losers that let the world walk all over them. Say no all the time, be a b******, they can help themselves, no I don't care how heavy that couch is.
• What's this? You're showing some semblance of feelings? What crap is this? Chuck Norris doesn't cry! The only thing you should feel is joy, lust, and RAEG! Having feelings and talking about them at any time is for pansies and losers that let the world walk all over them. MEN are emotionally deficient, got it?

Now class, what have we learned from this? That's right, to our shock and awe some people think like this. Broad strokes are easier than having to evaluate people individually so if you're into sports or some sort of athlete or at least a charismatic business student, the likelihood of having confidence and charm is so high it's not even a question. You will have it becuase it makes you a MAN. After all, MEN are designed to be hunters and gatherers, to compete, to kill, to go for blood. Be a "MAN" physically and mentally, you are ideal. Tradition and genetics and familiarity build today's standards.

Which mean those who are less then fit either by too much or too little weight have lost a portion of the battle but that's not a deal breaker. The insecurity is still there, becuase let's face it, some of us can be proud and pretty danged confident about our interests or whatever it is the heck we do, but really, those of us in the geeky and nerdy spectrum haven't exactly been praised for our encyclopedic knowledge of the Magic: The Gathering expanded universe. We're not allowed to like what we do without the general public looking upon us with with either ignoring us or general disdain. I mean, we have homebody interests: computers, documenting, organizing, math(a.k.a. Modifying Counter Strike, making wikis about Hunter X Hunter, collecting the entire DC Universe, and Dungeons & Dragons respectively, just to name some examples.)? These aren't MAN'S skills! Go outside and kill yourself ten buffalo and feast upon their testes while you make a sport out of their inflated stomach that involves beating each other up, you pansies!

So nothing to be proud of, skills traditionally unmasculine, extreme doormat tendencies if you're good and an entitlement obsessed overbearing jerkass if you're bad. And of course my entire post was self-deprecation which is also frowned upon becuase it implies insecurities and nobody likes insecurities. Good. Flipping. Grief.

Why can't the world just screw their standards of masculinity? Who cares about these flimsy standards? Yes I know men are providers, have their heads together and in the right place, I'm not talking about disregarding that, I'm talking about disregarding the standards of being a MAN in the social sense, not the familial or interpersonal relationship sense, but just the being yourself sense. Apparently anyone who deviates the norm doesn't deserve companions other than themselves or some other human low on the gender hierarchy than geeks, which is probably the homosexuals, because you can't get any more unmanly than digging dudes, amirite?

But of course this is just whining about a problem that I'm unwilling to change for myself. Most of your confident men friends may tell you changing is easy, just go out there and get our of your comfort zone. If that's their advice, obviously their minds are wired too differently for them to understand the roadblocks or history that built you up to your current mindset, or they don't want to/care to understand, or they are so far ingrained in their confidence mindset of doing anything easily that anything less is too unusual for them to comprehend. Either way, it's helpful unhelpful advice. It's basically helpful for confident people in hiding or in a rut and anybody who is even less than that are boned. You can try, but why put on a mask of being all "MANly" it accomplishes so much, but you may as well live a lie. Not everyone is raised to the proper standards of MANliness and some can act, but it's not who they are. Perhaps some of us are averse to violence, aggression, competition, athletics, or enjoy coding, showtunes, platformers, Dungeons and Dragons, or some combination of the above and more, why should it matter? Why should those all fall into other dark recesses of society with all who have those qualities as part of their make up?

Being the best version of yourself should be all that it takes to be a man. If confidence is difficult, then it is, and it may take a while to get it out there, but if people are going to look down on you for it, then to heck with them. An insecurity or two isn't going to kill anybody, though making an effort to break out of them would be preferred but we're only human, guide-dangit.

Look, I'm going around in circles and it appears I'm having trouble figuring out which parts I'm endorsing and condemning so I'm going to add this last bit of polish and head to sleep. The point is :The Standards are exclusionary, pointless, and demeaning and only breed insecurities, bitterness, and anger and not of the MANly kind either, but something cold and dark that breeds jerkasses and doormats.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power

Mousa the 14

Geek Rant Topic 07: One Manga

When All Else Fails, You call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

And I told myself I wasn't going to cry. It's finally happened. One Manga is finally dead. From a legal stand point it's about damn time. From a geek's standpoint it's a sad sad day.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Japanese comics and cartoons or many aspects of the geeky livelihood, One Manga was a website where scanlators (People who took time and money to scan and translate numerous Japanese comics to distribute on the net, mostly for free) uploaded translated versions of Japanese comics on a chapter-by-chapter basis for the general public to read for free. And immediately you can see the legal problems concerning copyright and the fact that the artist/writer is not making money off his product. I fully understand this viewpoint however I get the feeling that the argument against the take down of our precious free online graphic novels has not been well articulated.

That's why I'm here.

Look I know I'm basically endorsing something illegal here, but hear me out.

According to an axiom formulated by Theodore Sturgeon; "90% of everything is crud." 90% of movies made every year are bad, 90% of YouTube videos suck, 90% of conservatives are Tea Partiers or Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh, 90% of liberals are... Tree hugging, human rights advocating... uh... I dunno, Baby killers? Okay I suck at negatively straw manning my own party, but you get the point. I'm basically saying 90% of Manga and Anime also suck. Which means there is a 10% that was made by Jesus Christ himself. However not everything good gets popular so only the best of the best or the most popular of the best are taken up by Western translating studios because they have proven themselves to be able to make money in japan? So what about the 10% that didn't make the cut because nobody looked at it? or the 90% that isn't really that bad but enjoyable nonetheless? Those get shafted.

Scanlation hosting sites helped change that. People translated what they like and with such a wide variety of interests, the 90% and the 10% all got translated for people to read. I mean there are hundreds of manga that go through weekly/monthly magazines all the time in japan but only a small portion become popular enough to get an anime and e noticed by western companies. When yo think about it, sites like one manga are giving the smaller lesser known manga a chance for popularity and recognition. Unfortunately this has the downside that the artist is still getting nil but hype can help bring things to prominence all you have to do is believe.

Now that I think about it, I think I've just been posed with a wee bit of a conundrum. Nobody is winning here. Western companies will only import what sells so the low tier stuff that's actually good is ignored. Which means the artists are making less cash. Their sales in the their locality may or may not be fine. the people in the west are getting stuff later and they're not getting everything, good or bad. If we maintain scanlation sites we're basically endorsing stealing, which is not good. But then all the lesser guys aren't getting noticed which isn't necessarily fair. But they're not getting anything form their work anyway so why bother? Too many complications, too many variables...

What's more, we have to wait a long time for something that comes out in Japan to make it o the U.S. usually about 1-2 years if we're lucky and the anime or manga is popular enough, usually longer though. Scanlators practically have the stuff coming out at a similar time from the chapters are coming out monthly/weekly in Japan. If we had this in the west on a pay for subscription basis we wouldn't have this problem as much. Because while we're waiting for the final chapter of a story arc in the west, the next three story arcs are practically already finished i Japan. It's a hyperbole but that's how it is. We basically get into things almost after it's all over and it sucks.

The solution is for the translating companies like Funimation to keep doing what One Manga and other scanlation websites do but we have to pay a small fee to see the content, probably in the form of monthly payments and only through the official translating companies so that the money gets funneled to the artists.

There is one minor problem with that. Most geeks and anime fans are teens we tend not to have disposable income.

Oh the simple things. We can't fix everything I suppose.

I still miss One Manga though... Anybody know what happened next in One Piece and Soul Eater? I'm dying to find out here...

EDIT: Some things I forgot to cover. Obviously One Manga is not the end all to free online manga reading websites. Mangafox and Manga Reader still exist. While One Manga had less than the other two, it's Great to Goof ratio was higher on the Great side. what's more, One Manga was loved for it's simple and easy to use interface, while the other sites were a little clunky. It will probably not help much because of geeks' sense of entitlement I'll cover another day. While reading online is simplier and we are getting stuff immediately, we lack disposable income and more often than not we believe "Internet=Free." So official websites following scanlator's model is a good idea, especially if it's paid for, but like everything, has it's flaws. There is no simple solution or perhaps a solution at all.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination is Your Greatest Power

Mousa the 14

Geek Rant Topic 02: Furry Hate

When all else fails, you call Mousa the 14, That One Ranting Geek.

Everybody hates Furries! Geeks hate them, normal people hate them, the media hates them, apparently CSI hates them but I'd rather kill myself than watch that utterly uninteresting show.

Why exactly? I mean seriously, why?

I want to say you all have no reason to, but honestly you have many reasons to.

1) They are easy to get a rise out of
2) They act like a repressed minority when they are at a minimum hobbyist, and at the most a subculture, but not a real one, but like how "gamers" and "Otakus" are subcultures.
3) Otherkin. 'Nuff said
4) You had a bad first experience with one and are projecting on them all because you are a deaf bigot.
5) There was furry porn and you assumed all of them were sexual deviants.
6) The furry porn thing part 2: They like animal-people, ergo, They are into bestiality, the sick perverts.

Obviously the last 3 are not legitimate reasons but they're real reasons nevertheless. I can understand why normal people would alienate them.

However I do not understand why we, the Geeks and Nerds, do. Why would we, the guys who love X-men (an allegory for tolerance), hate on a group of people based on their interests? Need I remind why why we're called Geeks and Nerds? Because we are ostracized by mainstream and popular people for having non-mainstream interests. Oh, and because a vocal minority of you refuse to maintain decent hygiene but that's a rant for another day.

But as I was saying, we enjoy fantasy, science-fiction, video games, superheroes, comic books, card games, anything that comes from Japan, and so muc hmore, and we're ridiculed for it or rather, we're ignored to the point of making use exiles. In fact, this is it, isn't it? That's the reason.

Geeks have a persecution complex!

We have always been considered pretty low on the frikkin' "food chain". And That sucks. We supposedly learned to deal with it. But then we find something even we consider too strange and we come down on it like a ton of bricks.

Need I remind you of the Geek Heirarchy?



Here's the Unabridged version. Either way, Furries get a raw deal. And for what reason? They're easy to troll? Well that's mean-spirited and non-nonsensical, but then, not everybody can be rational, tolerant, and not living proof of GIFT. Oy vey...

So anyhow, where was I? Ah yes, we were bullied so we bully someone even lower than we are. Now that's mature. I'm so proud that a group supposedly filled with intellectuals or at least reasonably smart people can be such idiots. I mean what are we, Republicans?

I mean seriously, why should we direct our fury at them when they did nothing to us? If anything we should be raging against the mainstream, the cool kids, the popular people, the sportsmen, all those guys, not our fellow shut-ins. But then, maybe we just don't like each other.

I mean us geeks are a divisive group. Besides a common interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy, our interests beyond that get pretty diverse and divided. we get further away from the common genre and become more interested in our particular niches. I mean how do you enjoy expressing your interests in genre fiction? Video Games? Reading? writing? Magic The Gathering? Anime? See? Our methods are so divided we have no reason to like each other. I've seen it all before. Everybody's got to hate on something from the "Weeaboos" to the "Casual/Hardcore/Retro Gamers", it gets pretty silly. We shouldn't be doing this. We enjoy stuff that practically bleeds, breaths, and sweats tolerance. Why aren't we learning?

So I guess all I'm saying is, we've been out-casted for our interests, so why all the hate?

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power.
Mousa The 14