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

Geek Rant Topic 16: Revisiting the Geek Definiton

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

Remember this old thing?

I've been doing a bit of net gallivanting and have found that I'm a bit conflicted in my definitions.

What? What is it? What's with the giggles?

Oh Right. Get your jollies out of the way first.

Done making fun of me and the laughing? Good, now on to the real discussion.

A I was saying, I have found that my definitions and the manner in which I have come upon the have been a little off.

But first, before I elaborate on the geek definition, I wan to shove the Nerd one out of the way

NERD: A socially inadequate person who is noted not only for their poor social skills or lack of caring of mainstream interests and styles, but for their intelligence, display of said intelligence, and deep knowledge of a wide variety of fields or a specified field. The big difference between a geek and a nerd is that a Nerd's brilliance is usually within academic pursuits. They are Science geeks, math geeks, computer geeks. If it is an academic field with real life applications or at least has a real field of study and you are intellectually vested in it, you are a nerd.

Was my old definition and little has changed. The social inadequacy isn't quite necessary but basically a nerd is someone who is just plain smart. He's the guy who fixes your computer and does your homework for you. Those guys that TV shows put in glasses and button down shirts and suspenders and make them spout facts, just facts, ad nothing but the facts because they're that smart.

Basically 95% of the lyrics to this song:

Are about them.

Now for the other 10% about Dungeons and Dragons and choosing between Kirk or Picard and X-Men comics and Renaissance Faires? Geek, or at least geek as how I defined it previously

The geek has always been a different monster.

GEEK: A subset of hobbyist, people who have an deep interest in traditionally non-mainstream subjects that are often considered childish in nature. Similar to the Nerd, they are usually socially inadequate and brilliant. Unlike the nerd, their brilliance tends to be dedicated to their specific hobby. Usual interests of Geeks fall under Science-Fiction and Fantasy Genres spanning all mediums.

Problem is, I was defining geek by what we like rather than how we like it which appears to be the common theme I found in my journeys.

The definition I've stumbled across, which I agree with, is the second half of my previous definition:

Another aspect of Geeks as defined by The Game Overthinker in his video on continuity found here. the short and paraphrased version is this: "Geeks glean fun from turning something that is already fun into work" such as playing video games competitively, Stop Having Fun Guys, or collecting the entirety of the Marvel universe's comics to "keep the continuity straight".

I, for some reason, always viewed it as a content thing, like we like specific things rather than liking things a certain way. The Game Overthinker basically had it as "Likes things to a degree deeper than common knowledge". He even goes further into the subject here on The Big Picture though to be fair, him using the word nerd bugged me to high heaven. Though Bobbo does bring up excellent points about how the general public enjoys content considered "Geeky", its simply the manner in which it is enjoyed. Geeks like things on a deeper level and while I think Bob's description of "Turning something in a math problem" is going too far, it's basically in that direction of turning something fun into work but still deriving fun from it.

Which means it's not just sci-fi and fantasy fans, anybody can be a geek if they're obsessive enough about their respective hobby. Sports, history, Lego, whatever, I mean this is how experts are born.

That still leaves one little problem. The content-based description. There is still a specified group of somewhat socially awkward individuals that are part of some internet-based conglomerate of anime fans, Japan officianados, Magic: The Gathering players, video gamers, Trekkies, Star Wars fans, nostalgia nuts, cartoon lovers, media junkies, comedian reviewers, overthinkers, sci-fi lovers, fantasy lovers, Webcomic readers and makers, and comic book lovers. I mean these interests are filled with geeks and the fandoms overlap greatly (Which is why I called myself the Omni-Geek, since I loved all and specialized in none.) and they are still considered primarily non-mainstream and seen as childish or unwilling to let go of things that are aimed at kids and young teens.

In short, there's a working definition, but what do you call it?

I mean, it sounds like I'm obsessing but I like seeing things properly labeled in their proper space.

....

Now my membership at TvTropes suddenly makes sense....

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

Mousa The 14

Geek Rant Topic 13: Which Superhero Hasn't Died?

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

The other day I was talking with some geeky associates of my at the community college and I was notified that Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, was dead and Spider-man had replaced him in the Fantastic four (Which makes sense since Spidey is the perfect funny guy to replace Johnny and the two are good friends). But we also know this: The Human torch would be back. It was a fact of life, we said it like it was a bad joke, because it was. It was also noted that Nightcrawler of the X-men had died recently and was one of the few mainline X-men who hadn't died in their history, until recently.

It was then we got to talking and we realized: Who hasn't died in superhero comics? We we came up with a fairly small list so we decided we would venture onto the net and contact the message boards we closely associate with and find the answers. On our own we found that Spider-man hasn't died Tim Drake as Robin/Red Robin hadn't died and neither had Dick Grayson as Nightwing/Robin, The Invisible Woman, The Alan Scott Green Lantern, Jay Garrick Flash, and Luke Cage. This was just off the top of our heads with no research, and that's a minuscule list. I mean, when you think about it, it's a really interesting questions because comic books are practically known for killing people and for them to not be dead for very long. I mean when Superman was supposedly killed some time ago by the creature designed to kill him known as Doomsday, that was a big deal. Same when Batman got his back broken by Bane in the 90's, and Batman was killed not too long ago (But it turns out he was somehow sent time traveling. Yeah, comic books are weird.).

Obviously they wouldn't be dead for long. The big thing with the comic book industry is that they're not interested in making stories or characters, they make their money off of making long running legacies, which I sort of brought up in my previous entry, Modern Mythos. Which means even if they kills these characters, they won't be dead for long, they're too beloved for that and they have to stay to make the fans happy. The deaths were originally designed to "shake things up" but now they're just quaint to comic fans now. which means they don't serve as much purpose as they used to because we all know the guys will be coming back.

So it's just interesting to know who hasn't died because a lot of deaths has occurred. I mean it's almost like dying gives you superhero street cred or something. We set up some parameters for our quest though:

1. A big name or close to big name superhero, which I guess is hard to define, but let me put it to you this way, "Who is more important/well known? Iron Fist or Captain Mar Vell?" If you answered Iron Fist, you're own the right track. If you said Captain Mar Vell, you're a bigger geek than I am.
   
2. Someone who has had a minimum of 10 years of continuity behind them.
3. They had to have been dead or presumed dead for more than one issue. Enough to have had an impact on their universe.
4. It's a DC or a Marvel hero, obviously.
5. It's in the main universe. None of this "What-if" or "Elseworlds" nonsense.
   

Happy Hunting.

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

Mousa the 14

Geek Rant Topic 12: Modern Mythos

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

Once upon a time there were these deities worshiped by ancient civilizations. These people told many stories of the exploits of these deities. However, these stories were all primarily from word of mouth, there was no single comprehensive and linear and consistent story of any of these gods, only what was told and what little was written down. These deities by modern day became primarily abstract concept with vague yet specific jobs and exploits and rulings that can be interpreted and spun around in a myriad of ways by many different writers in the present day.

We called this ancient incomprehensible library of vague references mythology. These deities and heroes such as Gilgamesh or Zeus were mere concept that could be twisted and turned into whatever we wanted within certain pre-established guidelines. The idea was there and we could make up the details ourselves, it was all based on the person telling the story.

I want to you to think long and hard about this. Does this sound familiar to anybody, anybody at all? Anything in the modern day that works on this exact system of vague pre-established concept that many people write about and with each different writing, different interpretations re made and different details are added based on personal preference. Perhaps this is too vague. After all, mythology of old had specific groups, we had the Grecko-Roman Gods, The Norse Mythology, Agyptian gods, and far many more I don't even know the names of. I'll keep this simple, this modern day version I'm referring two has only two self contained groups.

Now I'm going to stop treating you like an idiot and tell you this modern day mytholgoy is superhero comics and the two specific mythologies are Marvel and DC.

Despite the obession with "Continuity", American comic books are a mess. and probably have the least amount of continutiy that make sense. Especially DC. These things have gone on for decades wit hcharacters that age in reverse dog years and basically they're environments where characters and stories are allowed to exist. These comic histories are incomprehensible and with all the crossovers, one shots, and and tie ins, not even counting the alternate universes, I doubt even the most devoted geek can keep track of their favorite superhero and if they can, they need to go outside and start smelling the frikkin' rosies becuase their dedication most likely took up 75% of their existences and I wish I was joking but that's how extensive these things are.

I saw the comic book industry needs to quit it and geeks need to quit it. You know why? Becuase the DC and Marvel comic universes are now nothing but big flipping mythologies, worlds where anything can happen and anyone can do whatever based on the mythology behind them. At this point no continuity matters and I doubt we can ever go back to the days of everything being separate individual characters and stories that may have a a conclusion, the connected universes will never end so let's just go all out, write whatever we want, we already disregard continuity ad consistency anyway, let's just run with this. We just remove the concept of "canon" and have everything be right depending on the writer. It's easier on the fans that way.

Isn't that awesome? We invented a mythology without having it being centuries of lost archives behind us!

Wanna hear more about how this whole continuity and comic books are a mess? Movie Bob has got a few vids that helped inspired this: Continuum, Continanity, and Nerd Gods, mind you the man uses stronger language than I do.

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

Mousa the 14