What with a serious lack of entertainment available to me these days (writer's strike backlash is not yet recovered), I've been crossing borders on my TV viewing.

No, I have not been watching Chinese TV. That would be stupid, because it is. No, actually, I've been getting back into Anime.

One of the funny things about Anime, and being an Anime Fan in America, is that it hold with it a certain amount of Sub-Culture Elitism. First off, when I first got into it, I called it "Japanimation" as most outsiders do. My new friends who had introduced me to it, immediately nailed me to a typhoid-infected wall with rusty nails the very first time they heard me utter that word. (We remain good friends to this day.)

It would seem that calling an "Anime" (the Japanese word for "cartoon") a "japanimation" is akin to calling a Romantic Film a "Chick Flick." The fans do not approve.


Back then, though, it was different. I recently read a comment on an Anime forum where one fan lamented about ye goode olde days (mid 90's) when "being an anime fan meant something." If I recall correctly, it meant being just as much of an stuck-up asshole as a UC Berkley Graduate Student who only watches black-and-white foreign films. Only difference was that you weren't deconstructing the genius of Fellini or Bergman...you were watching cartoons.

But it makes sense to try and give Anime it's own name. It practically is it's own genre. And "back in the day" it was very hard to come by. Sure, just like anything else in this world, anything that was super-successful in it's homeland got exported to the rest of us, that was how we were graced with the likes of Voltron and Speed Racer back in the 80's, but they had been well run through the American Laundry before they got to us, so it wasn't the same.


It was when you found those rare bootleg video tapes, that's when it got interesting. Somebody's Japanese pen-pal sends them home-VHS tapes of the latest cartoons to them. They spend the next 2 months working out the translation in their free time. Then they find some other poor slob with access to video editing equipment to dub a copy with subtitles. That one tape gets copied, and copied, and copied, and circulated all over country. Four years later, it lands in your hands and actually looks like an animated impressionistic painting. But, while you and your friends watch it in your mom's basement, you feel like you've discovered something special. This was not some major industry release. This was something that only people In The Know get to even know exist. This was a Cross-Culture Hidden Treasure. Back then, only the first 13 episodes of Ranma 1/2 had been translated into English, and so my friends actually started learning how to speak Japanese solely to be able to watch the rest. I did not have their fortitude (I was having a hard enough time with Spanish), so I dropped out of the race.

But, that was then. Before The Internet and DVD. Nowadays, whole franchises like Naruto, Bleach, Pokemon, and Avatar: The Last Airbender are being imported to America at record speed to cash in on the growing American Otaku Market. And, where in the past only the best-of-the best would elicit the extra effort to translate, export, and distribute, today's Anime Library in America could also include such amazing shit as Girls Bravo or Ping Pong Club.

And, strangely, even though it's becoming more and more mainstream every day, that intense sense of Elitism still holds on it's fans. They still demand it be called "Anime." Even if you're not so Neanderthal as to call it "Japanimation," just calling it a "cartoon" is met with venom. As though the people who actually make this stuff would call it any different.


And here I am. After dropping out of the anime scene some years ago, coming back only to check out Cowboy Bebop and Lain: Serial Experiments, I am now spending any free time I get on any Anime I can get a hold of. Everything from Death Note to Ikkitousen to Lucky Star to When The Higurashi Cry. I'm starting to say "arigato" instead of "thank you" without even realizing it. The Chinese don't appreciate it.

And, as I troll ye internets for snippets and advice on what shows and shorts and movies I should watch next, I'm discovering that the attitude of the average anime fan has not improved in the least little bit. Having their precious secret treasures laid out for all to enjoy and feast upon has not made them any more accepting to the newcomer. In fact, they've become even more angry, bitter, and spiteful. It seems like I've been called a "newfag" by everyone on the internet. I hate them all.

The odd thing is, it kind of makes sense. After all, we are talking about a Culture here. Just as I've always said that Superman and Batman are the Hercules and Odysseus of our era, the Anime Geeks ("Otaku") are their own tribe. To them, this mass overproduction and distribution their beloved Anime is akin to seeing Ceremonial Comanche Headdresses being mass marketed by a Taiwanese factory. What was once an artifact of ethnic pride, is now a common trinket. This makes them angry.


Well, fuck them. Where the fuck do they get off? Their Beloved Anime is not special. They are fucking cartoons. They are no different from GI Joe, He-Man, or She-Ra. They are marketing ploys. They are half-hour commercials for toys, video games, sticker books, hats, t-shirts, cell-phone covers, and whatever else they can think of that the name can fit on. Just because they speak a different language doesn't automatically make them priceless works of art that only you can truly appreciate on a deep level. Sure, the content can often be found to have more maturity, creativity, and substance than the "Hey guys, it's a mystery!" crap we usually get here, but that's only because they figured out faster than we did that grown-ups will buy toys too, if properly presented. They don't give a goddamn if I know the name of Ichigo's sword, so long as I buy the cast-iron letter-opener that looks like it. (Saw it in a shop yesterday. Almost did.)

Let's face it, in today's day and age, Culture is boundless. We live in an era where mass world-wide communication has caused the Zeitgeist to become permeable. For the first time in known history, cultures are melding into each other without the requirement of one conquering the other first. Rather, we are buying and selling our cultures to each other. They sell us Haruhi Suzumiya, we sell them Harry Potter. We buy fashionable Kimono pajamas, they buy baseball jerseys. We have gone from fighting over our differences, to selling them to each other.

As a former Anthropology student, I find it fascinating and beautiful.

So, to everyone who thinks they're so fucking cool just because they can name every single Captain, Vice-Captain, and Second Chair of the Thirteen Protection Squads of Soul Society, you're just going to have to be happing with patting yourself on the head, because you're nothing special. It's just culture, and culture is fluid. Trying to keep it static is foolish and futile. Hell, it's not even your culture to keep.

Smile Naked, Space Cowboy.

posted by JonTheDoc at 4:21 AM
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