murderpotato:
im-a-motherfucking-bald-eagle:
nerdfaceangst:
youkoofthelovespot:
aintgotnoladytronblues:
kamen-rider-rahbito:
meezdeez7:
knightofsuperior:
josukehigashikata:
fashinpirate:
im hollerin
Miyazaki: The Problem With The Anime Industry Is It’s Full of People Who Actually Buy the Content They Consume
#I’M REALLY TORN ABOUT THIS #I LOVE MIYAZAKI AND THE THINGS HE MAKES #BUT NOW I FEEL COMPLETELY INSULTED BY A PERSON I LOOK UP TO #ALSO HE IMPLIES MASTURBATION IS AS BAD AS WAR????? #WTF MIYAZAKI WHO ARE YOU #I HATE SEEING THE PERSON BEHIND THE CREATIONS SOMETIMES #THIS IS HORRIBLE AND I WISH I DIDN’T SEE IT #IT’S JUST LIKE HORRIBLESUBS AND THE SHITTY THINGS THEY SAY ABOUT THE FANS WHO WATCH THE SHOWS THEY FANSUB #JFC FUCK THE WORLD
Methinks Miyazaki has spent a little too much time going bar hopping with Hideki Anno
He’s the new Alan Moore. Was only a matter of time.
IN WHICH I WRITE A VERY LONG POST ABOUT WHY MIYAZAKI IS NOT WRONG AND I APPARENTLY CAN’T INSERT A READ MORE BREAK SO SUCK IT IN THAT REGARD TOO, I GUESS
tl;dr:
If you unironically call yourself an otaku, you’re lumping yourself in with some of the least-respected members of society in Japan, and you shouldn’t be surprised/outraged when a well-respected member of Japanese society looks down on you.
The things otaku like are off-putting, and because the anime industry makes most of their money from otaku, the anime industry in general is off-putting.
The anime industry should probably be restructured so that otaku have less power to decide what gets animated, otherwise the anime industry will collapse because NOBODY LIKES IT.
Gimme your lunch money, nerds.
Uh, he never implied masturbation is as bad as war. He’s being a cranky old man, as cranky old men are wont to do. The author of the article just listed those things as additional things Miyazaki doesn’t like.
And something you people really, really, REALLY need to understand is that "otaku" is not a term of endearment in Japan the way “nerd” has become so in the West. If I were to speculate, I’d say it has a lot to do with cultural values - here, we place a lot of value and pride in our individual identities, but that just is not the case in Japan. They, and the East Asian countries in general, place a lot of value in working to improve the collective. Being an otaku implies a lot of the things you’d think being the classical “nerd” implies - living in your mother’s basement, spending all your time watching anime/slacking off, and being a general drain on society. While that’s not “accepted” in the West per se, it is not directly contradictory to every cultural value we have. We’re just expressing our identities when we do those kinds of things. In Japan, they are the antithesis of a praiseworthy member of society.When the anime industry is, in Miyazaki’s mind, full of these kinds of people, who seal themselves off in insular groups and jack off to 2D waifus all day in between drawing said 2D waifus, that is a real problem.
Frankly, when I look at the entire catalogue of anime titles released over the past 5 years, I see what he means. Who the fuck is going to buy OreImo except lolicon siscon hentai otaku? Who the fuck is going to buy K-On! except ronery NEETs? I LOVE the Monogatari Series - but who the fuck is going to buy that shit except social rejects?
Real-life people do not act like the people in those shows.Real people do not say to their friends/rivals in love “hey, let’s take a shower together while I fondle your tits.” Real sisters do not fall in love with their oniichan desu~s after many sessions of counseling. I love the tsundere archetype, but a real-life tsundere is someone that nobody wants to be around because they treat other people like shit.
I probably should devote an entire paragraph to lolis. (Most) people do not sexualize little girls, and in fact find the sexualization of of little girls to be repulsive. Why, then, are there so many lolis in anime? Because lolis represent a lot of things that a lot of men find desirable in women - innocence, petite bodies, cuteness in general. But for whatever reason, it has become not only okay, but the norm for anime to have prepubescent girls in compromising sexual positions. If you like flat chests - fine. If you like inexperienced girls - fine. If you like cute things - fine. Mashing all of those things together on a 12-year-old and slapping a bikini on her to appeal to otaku with those preferences? Most people will say that is fucked up.
Fanservice is off-putting to a lot of people. Incest is off-putting to a lot of people. Lolis are off-putting to a lot of people. Unbelievable characters and character interactions are off-putting to a lot of people. But those things are things that self-proclaimed otaku audiences embrace, so that’s what the Miyazaki-proclaimed otaku in the industry draw. Because animation studios make so little money off of anything but DVD and merchandise sales, and otaku are the only people who buy that stuff, the anime industry of late has become inbred and stale at best, and offensive and pedophilic at worst.
Miyazaki is well-loved, both in the West and in the East. But he is not well-loved because his works are made for otaku. I’ve never seen anything he’s made, but the sense I get is that he’s loved in the mainstream because he tells stories that resonate with a hell of a lot of people. The problem he sees in the anime industry is that their works tend only to resonate with otaku, and otaku are not acceptable members of society in Japan. From what I’ve seen of what’s been released and been popular the past few years, I cannot blame him for thinking the way he does.
one of the people in the reblogs is legitimately getting upset and comparing miyazaki being justifiably cranky to that time an illegal fan translator called them something mean once i swear to fucking god what kind of jokes need to be written here that could compare to the unfortunate joke these people make of themselves already.
ps this isn’t actually arguing the above’s point at all, but further expanding it: “lolicon” is a euphemism for drawn child porn. so is “shotacon”. just like “dubcon” and “noncon” are euphemisms for rape fantasies (the words don’t have the same roots at all, but it’s funny how “-con” suffixes are giant red flags for “i’m a person who embraces toxically obfuscating worldviews”). they’re lying words, used to make people feel less guilty about liking something horrific but using euphemisms makes it easier for abusers to stealth their way into our scenes, and don’t think i don’t know this from experience, and they’re not worth the support.
people just don’t get that it’s not an insult to call these cartoons shit for shit people; it’s not insulting to someone’s ~*~culture~*~ unless you think pedophiles are a cultural necessity. (judging by takashi murakami’s current output which i’m not linking because holy shit no, there are definitely people who think so, and many of them help procure government funds for these projects, which means now we are not coincidentally getting into the often frightening overlap between the otaku audience in japan and the current right-wing nutcases running the government, which resembles, remarkably so, how much overlap there is between bronies, the tea party, and mostly male but also just nerds in general here in the united states.) they literally are shit for shit people and you should hate that this bullshit has overtaken the industry. MALE NERDS IN JAPAN LITERALLY CHASED LITTLE GIRLS OFF AN OFFICIAL FORUM DESIGNED FOR THEM TO TALK ABOUT A SHOW AIMED AT LITTLE GIRLS BY REPEATEDLY LINKING TO PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIAL AND TALKING ABOUT THEIR SEXUAL FANTASIES INVOLVING THE UNDERAGE CHARACTERS OF THE SHOW. THEY HAVE TAKEN CONCEPTS INTENDED TO EMPOWER YOUNG GIRLS AND TURNED THEM INTO EXCUSES TO VIOLATE LITTLE GIRLS AND HORRIBLY MURDER THEM FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. REPEATEDLY. REPEATEDLY. DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR YET.
did you know that there is a child rapist working in the industry right now and not in prison for reasons that i’m pretty sure boil down to “because he’s friends with eiichiro oda, the creator of one piece”? did you know i’m pretty sure people have spent years covering up kunihiko ikuhara’s transmisogyny and attempted sexual assault of underage girls because he “means so much” to so many fans? did you know he’s probably not even close to the only one? did you know that there are multiple accounts of attempted assault on pop idols that go nowhere and are never properly reported to authorities to avoid upsetting their devoted fanbases? do you think the industry mentality that produces these shows and encourages these fans, that the antisocial, “hating people who could grow up because they couldn’t”, mentality at the root of what makes overgrown manchildren so dangerous, is not linked to why nerds relentlessly dedicate themselves to being grown adults fetishizing the adolescent body, is not in some way responsible for allowing this man to continue making comics? i don’t play that.
never.
Another issue with the industry being filled by otaku is that it’s not just consuming it but yes like the above commenters said: people who are making it who can’t seem to accept reality and have this sense of entitlement.
Miyazaki is long-time friends with Anno Hideaki—you know, the guy who made Evangelion?? Anno personally made a huge slap in the face scene at otaku saying that they pretty much people who get their rocks off at inanimate, defenseless (because they are inanimate) prepubescent girls. Which scene is that? The one where Shinji jacked off on Asuka. Anno also hates the otaku culture as well as otaku and look at what he does with the commonly consumed otaku tropes—he deconstructs them and makes it very clear that he thinks that these tropes are unrealistic and if set in a realistic manner and psychology, are completely undesirable and unappealing. This is something that a LOT of people miss, especially since the rebuilds have been very thin on the characterization that new consumers of EVA think she’s another stock tsundere.
Otakus are not synonymous with nerds and geeks in the western culture, and this is part of the problem. Agreeing with the people above, it’s not a term of endearment, it’s an insult, and people who read this article need to understand that it’s not a stab at nerds and geeks in general, it’s a stab at the Japanese image of otaku.
READ THE HOUSE DOWN.
I also want to add that one of Miyazaki’s arguments is that these otaku are not respecting the human body; anime characters are becoming less and less human-like, and that is really unhealthy for the psyche of the population. Imagine how warped the male otaku’s view of what a woman is meant to look like, when his “ideal woman” is a cartoon character that barely resembles a human being at all.
Side-eyeing the broad strokes about made about Japanese and “East Asian” cultures in general (not a monolith, tks) but some salient points further down in the discussion