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Nele Noppe

So You Wanna be a Japanese Animator - 1 views

  • Echoing the recent coverage of the troubles facing the anime industry, here are translated excerpts of blogs written by Japanese anime industry insiders. Several are taken from a fascinating website called Off the Record Animation Industry Gossip (subtitle: "Read this if you're thinking of becoming an animator! This is the true face of the anime industry! Do you think you can survive?") Bear in mind that as these blogs are anonymous, there is no way to verify the veracity of the claims. But they are a fascinating counterpoint to the "soft power"/"Japan cool"/"otaku utopia" rhetoric often espoused by foreign journalists.
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    Echoing the recent coverage of the troubles facing the anime industry, here are translated excerpts of blogs written by Japanese anime industry insiders. Several are taken from a fascinating website called Off the Record Animation Industry Gossip (subtitle: "Read this if you're thinking of becoming an animator! This is the true face of the anime industry! Do you think you can survive?") Bear in mind that as these blogs are anonymous, there is no way to verify the veracity of the claims. But they are a fascinating counterpoint to the "soft power"/"Japan cool"/"otaku utopia" rhetoric often espoused by foreign journalists.
Nele Noppe

Seminar on Anime and Contemporary Japanese Society - 0 views

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    While anime is being watched on a global scale, there are significant differences in its contemporary reception. The gap between regular consumers and critical spectators, sometimes appearing in the form of Japanese audiences vs. foreign Japanologists, deserves special attention since it raises a number of questions, such as what sort of animated film is identified as anime; who relates anime to politics, history and society; what kind of meaning is at play in anime's performative images, and to what extent one can read "Japanese society", or even "culture", out of anime.
Nele Noppe

Live Action Anime? Only at MIT! - 0 views

  • the many ways that anime crosses over from the "virtual" to the "real." The most obvious example is cosplay and the many forms of licensed merchandise, such as toys and models, that in effect bring anime through the screen and into people's hands. When fans take anime and manga characters, and use them to create their own fanzine manga (dôjinshi), a similar kind of translation effect is underway, that is, taking imagined characters, re-imagining through our own minds, and the creating something new in the world.
  • Anime creators always struggle with challenge of bringing the "real" into the "virtual" space of animation.
  • Anime fans have long debated whether Anime is best understood as a genre (or perhaps a set of related genres), as an aesthetic style, as a mode of production, or as a transmedia phenomenon.
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  • Cyberpunk has long been a vehicle for authors and animators to reflect upon the influence of media on contemporary culture
  • captured the anime aesthetic
  • The performers developed their 'signature poses' and we worked from those to generate a language of motion. In the end, it was much harder than I thought it might be, to go through the entire piece in this sort of 'physical karaoke' but without ever speaking a word. It helped us reconsider the importance of breath and sound as components of human expression, because in the live action anime, working with the pre-recorded soundtracks, the performers never got to make a sound.
  • creating phrases with our bodies.
Nele Noppe

Of Otakus and Fansubs - 0 views

  • hindrances in a digital world that copyright laws pose for creative works that, while technically infringing, should perhaps be valued and allowed.6 Certain features of digital technologies and the internet,7 according to Lessig, can permit greater restrictions on remix than were allowed in the past.8
  • hindrances in a digital world that copyright laws pose for creative works that, while technically infringing, should perhaps be valued and allowed.6 Certain features of digital technologies and the internet,7 according to Lessig, can permit greater restrictions on remix than were allowed in the past.8
  • Lessig and other legal scholars such as Mehra have pointed to dojinshi in Japan as an example of how permitting more “remix” can contribute to a vibrant cultural industry.
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  • some artists make a living off producing dojinshi.
  • In the west, fans of anime, the term for Japanese animation, behave much like fans of Star Wars and Star Trek: they “remix” the characters and ideas from the stories they watch.
  • Trekkies or Star Wars fans do the same activities as otaku, but one practice sets anime fans apart from other avid fans: fansubs.
  • Manga also has its own form of fansubs called scanlations
  • Fansubs and scanlations don’t quite match the “traditional” forms of remix that Lessig and others mention. They do not create a “new” work in the same sense as dojinshi, fan films, or AMVs because their aim is to remain faithful to the original work.
  • Fansubs as a cultural product sit at an interesting boundary—between the dojinshi-like fan culture that authors such as Lessig want to encourage and the massive online file trading so vilified by the recording and motion picture industries.
  • examines the anime industry’s unique relationship with fansubbers in the context of the suggestion that it represents a new policy model for online copyright.
  • Section 7 concludes by stating that it is too soon to claim the anime industry as a victory for alternative business models incorporating what most would think of as widespread copyright infringement.
  • Otaku create fansubs because they love anime—in fact, most love all things Japanese.
  • Fansubs predate BitTorrent, broadband, the dotcom boom and bust, and even the World Wide Web.
  • Fansubbers distributed or traded the finished videocassette tapes to others, but because of the time and cost involved of mailing out a physical medium, distribution was limited.
  • At one time fansubs were virtually the only way that fans could watch (and understand) anime.
  • But as with the music industry, the benefits of digital technology and the internet brought problems.46 Fansubbers started to take advantage of faster computers that allowed them to subtitle anime without the need for expensive, specialized equipment.47 This made it easier for more people to fansub because of the lower cost barriers to becoming a fansubber. The internet also meant that fans could meet from around the world, thus making it more likely that fansub groups would form. Today, groups now make digital video files instead of videocassettes.
  • Fansubbed videocassettes offered a poor quality picture and sound that encouraged fans to buy the licensed product when it came out and also limited the number of copies that could be made from a single original cassette (or from 2nd and 3rd generation cassettes).49 Digisubs offer a quality comparable to official (DVD) releases and the ability to make limitless copies.
  • Fansubbers then “release” their fansubs to fans. Distribution happens through all of the regular internet channels, including p2p services (Kazaa, eMule, etc), BitTorrent, IRC, and newsgroups.
  • Lessig essentially asks the question, “Do our laws stifle creativity and sharing to the point where it harms society?”78 Some point to fansubs and anime as part of the answer to this question—when a company allows some illegal activity it actually benefits.
  • Unfortunately for fansubbers, copyright law does not condone their activities.80 International copyright treaties such as the Berne Convention, state that its signatories (such as the United States and Japan) should grant authors the exclusive right to translation.
  • copyright law construes translations as “derivative works”.82 Derivative works are any work “based upon one or more preexisting works.
  • The Japanese legal system may also, as a practical matter, discourage litigation towards fansub groups within Japan,
  • Within Japan, fansubs could potentially be within the law because the Japanese take a more relaxed attitude towards some aspects of copyright law and include private use and non-profit exceptions into their law.
  • For infringements outside of Japan, it is no small wonder that Japanese companies do not bother with the expense of enforcing a right against a group whose infringement affects a distant market with a different legal system.
  • In his article regarding selective copyright enforcement and fansubs, Kirkpatrick argues for a fair use defense under U.S. law for fansub activities based on the cross-cultural value of translations, the non-commercial nature of fansub groups, and the potential market enhancement for the original work.
  • The fact remains that fansubs may create a preferable product for otaku—thus decreasing any market enhancement arguments.
  • One wonders what could be easier than a few clicks of the mouse and a few hours (or less) wait for a file to download, for free. Many video files deliver comparable picture quality and fandubs do exist.
  • Regardless of any potential defense, the law sufficiently tilts towards copyright holders so that they can easily use the threat of suit as enforcement.
  • The sheer cost of defending a copyright suit makes for a powerful incentive for fansubbers to settle, especially since fansubbers make no money from their activities and are unlikely to have any assets.
Nele Noppe

Youth Brigade: Clearing up the Tokyo Youth Ordinance Bill - 0 views

  • This bill is not good for the Japanese anime and manga industry as a whole; it is not good for publishers, and it is not good for the creators. As anime and manga fans, we are constantly fighting against the preconceived notion that such entertainment is just for kids. Unfortunately, if this law remains on the books and creators cannot make the daring works they wish, anime and manga may indeed turn into unquestioning, lobotomized entertainment for little kiddies from here on out.
  • Bill 156 is not an across the board muzzling of creativity and critical art in Japan. However, it is potentially a hollowing out of two of Japan's most noteworthy art forms.
  • novels and films are not affected by this law
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  • At the very least, for the time being there is going to be a chilling effect on anime and manga creators. They will constantly have to stop and assess their works against the law, or what the lawyers in the company interpret the law to be. Publishers will be forced to become more conservative with their stories, potentially sidestepping any criticism or commentary on major social issues.
  • As Simon Jones of Icarus Publishing pointed out in a blog post in June celebrating the defeat of the “Nonexistent Youth Bill” (possibly NSFW content), the anime and manga industries are “predominantly female” and any legislation restricting creativity in these industries would have a disproportionate effect on the female workforce. I think this is even more of a concern with Bill 156. I don't think the majority of shounen series will experience much fallout from the bill. However, an emphasis on sex and relationships is more frequently seen in shoujo, josei, and yaoi manga, where both the creators and consumers are largely female. Although it seems gender-neutral on the surface, it could be women who feel the brunt of the enforcement of Bill 156.
  • Many Japanese publishers are against this bill for many of the same reasons they were against the first “nonexistent youths” bill – it unevenly restricts freedom of speech and is so vaguely worded that they are unsure if the manga or anime they are putting out would be in violation.
  • The bill also doesn't mention doujinshi and other works created by fans. Of course, a lot of doujinshi with sexual content are already for adults only, so it would have little effect even if the law applied to such fan creations. Also, the main punishment for breaking the law is removal of access to distribution and retail, which wouldn't really impact artists who may make more of their sales directly to fans at Comiket.
  • the bill has nothing to say about any manga or anime that's currently considered adult. All of those titles that are currently for sale only to people over the age of eighteen won't be directly impacted by this. I've seen a number of people saying that they might be in favor of this bill because it would get rid of some of the horribly violent manga that feature sex with underage characters. However, this bill has absolutely nothing to say to anime or manga like that – they would still be able to be sold to adult consumers.
  • The bill puts an emphasis on self-regulation, with the expectation that publishers will begin policing themselves. (However, this may be hard to do since the bill is still vaguely worded.) If a publisher runs afoul of the bill too many times, then they may face what is in essence a blacklist, with no distributors or retailers able to carry their products.
  • The bill goes into effect in April 2011, and it's presumed that materials that were published before this date won't be affected. However, new editions of previously published anime and manga will presumably fall under this law.
  • Since Dan Kanemitsu has been writing frequently about this bill, I'll just quote his summary of the relevant portion of it, which will restrict “any manga, anime and video games that feature any sexual acts that would violate criminal codes or Tokyo ordinances OR sexual depictions between close relatives who could not legally get married to be treated as adult material IF they are presented in [an] ‘unjustifiably glorified or exaggerated manner.’” In some ways the language of the bill clarifies things, since we no longer have to try to figure out if a character meets the qualifications of being a “youth” in order for the restrictions in the bill to apply. However, by taking out the language regarding youth, it actually means that Bill 156 could have a potentially wider reach than the one that was defeated earlier in the year. Additionally, the part about presenting such scenes in an “unjustifiably glorified or exaggerated manner” is open to a wide variety of interpretations.
Nele Noppe

Fund animators, not adaptations - 0 views

  • we're looking at a definite trend of live-action anime adaptations, the first of which to hit screens being Dragonball Evolution, which also features white actors playing roles originally created, written, directed, animated, and performed by Japanese people.
  • According to Edward Said, one of the principles of Orientalism is a belief that Asia cannot speak for herself, and that the West must do it for her, constantly re-interpreting and clarifying the "mysteries of the Orient" for Western audiences, regurgitating the complexities of other cultures into an easily-digestible whole
  • There's an argument to be made that the purpose of live-action adaptations isn't to appeal to anime fans (although such adaptations doubtless intend on capitalizing on them), but rather to introduce mainstream viewers to anime via the otherwise-familiar milieu of flesh-and-blood cinema.
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  • But can such a move really benefit the anime industry? Is a live-action adaptation -- especially one that uses white actors in Japanese roles*** -- really a faithful homage to a beloved title?
Ariane Beldi

Australian Anime, Manga & Slash Fans May Run Afoul of Law | Dru Pagliassotti - 1 views

  • However, the Australian law is very vaguely worded, and I fear it’s going to cause as much harm as it may cause good. For example, from an academic’s perspective, it’s clear that one of the problems of this legislation is that it will have a very strong chilling effect on Australian scholars interested in studying anime, manga, slash, and yaoi, or even other forms of sex/uality, because of the sheer possibility that clicking on a link, ordering a movie or manga, or even purchasing an academic book or reading a journal article on the subject might expose one to an image that could be interpreted as “child pornography” under Australian law.
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    In 2010 the Australian Government proposes to go ahead with a mandatory ISP-level internet filtering scheme which, if passed into law, could have a massive impact on anime, manga and slash fans. Why manga and slash fans? Because the main target of the law is to prevent the circulation of 'child abuse sexual imagery' - BUT in Australia 'child abuse sexual imagery' covers even FICTIONAL representations and includes 'under age' characters in anime, manga and slash. If the law is passed, any fan site that contains or links to this material could be added to a government 'blacklist' and access denied in Australia.
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    This is an important news for both fans and scholars of fanfictions and dojinshi.
Ariane Beldi

AJISS-Commentary-A Growing Love for "Cool Japan" - 3 views

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    Japan may appear defensive on the economic and political fronts. Has the world lost interest in an aging Japan whose economy will fall to third largest? There is, however, a side of Japan that is the object of ever stronger and deeper affection around the globe: Japanese popular culture, particularly anime (Japanese animation) and manga.
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    True. In America, this seems to be growing. I see less and less of comic books and more manga novels, although manga is part of the Japanese culture. Not only that, but it seems manga is more.. I'm not sure what you can call it, but it has a different feel to it than a comic book, for obvious reasons. It's like comparing a cartoon to an anime. Although their qualitys are alike, they come from different culture and people, etc. Plus, most animes seem a bit more serious than cartoons, but that may be just the particullar shows I'm watching.. ~Z
Nele Noppe

China: "Destroy Japanese Anime!" - 1 views

  • A recent comment by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao decrying the lack of Chinese anime has incited a flurry of online support, with Chinese net users vigorously denouncing Japanese anime. The Premier started the fracas by publically lamenting the current poverty of Chinese visual culture: “There are times when I watch TV anime with my grandchild, but they’re always foreign works like Ultraman and so on, and few are domestically produced. We should be cultivating a domestic anime industry.”
Nele Noppe

Bored? Watch Anime Online - 8 views

Welcome, Mienad! Small legal whine: the site only links to material, of course, but it can't guarantee that the videos linked were uploaded legally. Just needed to mention that so we're clear what...

anime animeez

Nele Noppe

Japan's Kids Station Cancels Its Hetalia Anime Run - 0 views

  • The official website of the Hetalia anime confirms the television run's cancellation, but indicates that the anime will still be distributed over the Mobile Animate service for mobile phones and over the Animate.tv service for broadband web users.
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    Canceled on TV, but not on phones or online? Why?
Nele Noppe

New Anime Sequence Written for Kill Bill - 0 views

  • Kill Bill lead actress Uma Thurman told MTV Movies Blog that director Quentin Tarantino "had already written" the new anime sequence that will serve as the intermission between the two volumes of the film in a planned re-release.
Nele Noppe

Animation Co-Op Defense League Making Progress - Anime News Network - 0 views

  • (Chatsworth, CA) The Animation Co-Op Defense League (ACDL), a consortium of Adult Animation Distributors & Studio's, is pleased to announce they have made significant progress in their efforts to educate and combat the proliferation of web sites illegally hosting and offering for sale selling unlicensed content which is owned by the major Animation studios.
  • Said Crawford, “Every day we speak with web sites, tube sites, and affiliate programs, who have knowingly or unknowingly displayed content that they do not have the rights for. We have discovered that some of them were misinformed and want to legally comply with the Co-Op's members to obtain legitimate licenses to resell the material. This year alone we have already taken down a total of 10,738 infringers, including: 5006 Movie file-sharing links, 2123 Picture file-sharing links and 3609 Blog posts.
Nele Noppe

Moe and the Potential of Fantasy in Post-Millenial Japan - 2 views

  • If kawaii, or the aesthetic of cute, is the longing for the freedom and innocence of youth, manifesting in the junior and high school girl in uniform (Kinsella 1995), then moe is the longing for the purity of characters pre-person, manifesting in androgynous semi and demi human forms. This is called 'jingai,' or outside human, and examples include robots, aliens, dolls and anthropomorphized animals, all stock characters in the moe pantheon. A specific example would be nekomimi, or cat-eared characters. More generally, in order to achieve the desired affect, moe characters are reduced to tiny deformed 'little girl' images with emotive, pupil-less animal eyes
  • I argue fantasy characters offer virtual possibilities and affect
  • Moe is also used by fujoshi, zealous female fans of yaoi, a genre of manga featuring male homosexual romance. However, the word moe indicates a response to fantasy characters, not a specific style, character type or relational pattern. While some things are more likely than others to inspire moe, this paper will focus mainly on the response itself rather than the forms that inspire it.
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  • Both otaku and fujoshi
  • The moe character is a 'body without organs' (Deleuze and Guattari 1987), and the response to its virtual potentials is affect.
  • Massumi argues affect is a moment of unformed and unstructured potential (Massumi 2002). The experience, what he calls an 'intensity,' is outside of logical language and conscious control. Moe provides a word to express affect, or to identify a form that resonates and can trigger an intensity.
  • It is for this reason that moe is consistently misunderstood as first and foremost images of young girls instead of a response to virtual potentials
  • In the field interacting with otaku and fujoshi, I was constantly confronted by the concept of moe, and found it necessary to engage it.
  • These are both men and their discourse centers on male otaku, but I will argue from them a more general theory, applied later in the paper to fujoshi structures of desire.
  • Honda, a youth-oriented novelist and self-styled moe critic, defines moe as 'imaginary love'
  • the salient point is his judgment that a relationship with a mediated character or material representations of it is preferable to an interpersonal relationship.
  • the moe man is feminized
  • While recognizing the conservative nature of otaku sexuality, Azuma attempts to account for the schizophrenic presence of perversion in the moe image. For Azuma, otaku are postmodern subjects with multiple personalities engendered by their environment and enthusiastic media consumption
  • To feel moe for all characters in all situations, the narrative connecting characters or moments in time is de-emphasized.
  • cat ears,
  • response is unconnected with 'reality' and thus offers new potentials to construct and express affects.
  • Separating their desire from reality allowed for a new form of affect called moe.
  • Simply stated, moe is about unbounded potential.
  • Moe is affect in response to fantasy forms that emerged from information-consumer culture in Japan in the late stages of capitalism.
  • conditioning of young girls into 'pure consumers'
  • Such a space is disconnected from social and political concerns, and exists for the preservation of the individual.
  • the media and consumption feeding into moe is a specific sort centered on affect.
  • Manga scholar Itou Gou argues that since the end of the 1980s characters in anime, manga and videogames became so appealing that fans desired them even without stories (Itou 2005). Ito dubs such character types 'kyara,' distinct from characters (kyarakutaa) embedded in narratives.
  • Proof of this can be found in the rise of 'parody' doujinshi,
  • The doll-like and semi-human Ayanami became the single most popular and influential character in the history of otaku anime; fans still isolate parts of the character to amplify and rearticulate in fan-produced works to inspire moe.
  • In works featuring these characters, the original work functions as a starting point, and the extended process of producing and consuming moe takes place among fans in online discussions and videos, fan-produced comics (doujinshi), costume roleplay (cosplay) and figures.
  • virtual potentiality
  • That the moe form, the body without organs, is outside personal and social frames is precisely why it triggers affect.
  • 'moe otaku' a superficial fixation on surfaces and accelerated consumption of disposable moe kyara, impetus for him to declare this younger generation culturally 'dead'
  • One man I spoke with said, 'Moe is a wish for compassionate human interaction. Moe is a reaction to characters that are more sincere and pure than human beings are today.' Similarly, another man described moe as 'the ultimate expression of male platonic love.' This, he said, was far more stable and rewarding than 'real' love could ever be. Manga artist Akamatsu Ken stresses that moe is the 'maternal love' (boseiai) latent in men,[xxi] and a 'pure love' (junsui na ai) unrelated to sex, the desire to be calmed when looking at a female infant (biyoujo wo mite nagomitai) (Akamatsu 2005). 'The moe target is dependent on us for security (a child, etc.) or won't betray us (a maid, etc.). Or we are raising it (like a pet)' (Akamatsu 2005). This desire to 'nurture' (ikusei) characters is extremely common among fans. Further, moe is about the moment of affect and resists changes ('betrayal') in the future, or what Akamatsu refers to as a 'moratorium' (moratoriamu). Moe media is approached as something of a sanctuary from society (Okada 2008), and as such is couched in a discourse of purity.
  • I will now demonstrate how it is further possible to reduce people to characters, or to reduce reality to fantasy in pursuit of moe.
  • Association with the two-dimensional world, and lack of depth or access in the three-dimensional world, makes a maid moe.[
  • The appeal of the maid cannot purely be sexual: As many as 35 per cent of customers are women
  • this arose in Japan in the late stages of capitalism as a result of shifts in consumer-information society
  • bias towards male fans of anim
  • aoi erases the female presence because fans say female-male or even female-female couples[xxxvi] are too 'raw' (namanamashii). Put another way, the reality of relationships is removed from yaoi to make the moe response possible.
  • the ambiguous yaoi 'male' is quite literally a body without organs
  • Many other fujoshi I spoke with dated men even as they imagined possibilities of coupling them as characters with other men.[xl] As Saitou points out, the reality of heterosexual relationships and virtual possibilities of homosexual couplings are separate and coexistent (Saitou 2007). Journalist Sugiura Yumiko explains this as the crucial difference between fujoshi and otaku, who approach fantasy as an alternative for things that they actually want but cannot realize in this world (Sugiura 2006).[xli] A fujoshi, for example, would not 'marry' a two-dimensional character the way some otaku advocate;
  • Sugiura is importantly highlighting that fantasy and reality are separate and coexistent, but this is widespread in moe culture and not solely a female quality.[xlii] As much as male otaku boast of their two-dimensional wives, they often do so with levity as a self-conscious performance
  • While it is true that men tend to feel moe for single characters that they can possess while women feel moe for relationships or character couplings, this broad difference is fast disappearing. In truth, the media popular among so-called 'moe otaku' in recent years has come to resemble yaoi aesthetics: multiple girls in a nostalgic or fantastic world with minimal male presence and heightened emphasis on relationships and emotions
  • In all cases, the database (Azuma 2009) is present. The elements that constitute and indicate a certain type of top or bottom, for example glasses or hairstyle or height, are predetermined; any given top or bottom is a construct of defined character traits and behavior.
  • One of the most recognizable features of the moe phenomenon is the anthropomorphization of objects into objects of desire. Otaku turn cats, war machines, household appliances and even men of historical significance into beautiful little girls to trigger moe. Reality is flattened, and from it emerge polymorphous forms of stimulation. Similarly, fujoshi can rearticulate anything into beautiful boys and sexualized yaoi relations. Moe characters can be based on a written description or drawn image, a physical person or even anthropomorphized animals, plants and objects.
  • The erotic fantasy effectively re-mystified their world, adding a layer of potential to the mundane (the very ground under their feet!) and making the familiar queer and exciting. Latent potential so unlocked, the three friends replayed the moe relationship across other potential players such as shampoo and conditioner, knife and spoon, salt and pepper.
  • More startling and subversive is 'moe politics' (seiji moe), where national histories, international relations and imposing world leaders are reduced to moe characters across which yaoi romance can be read.
  • It should be noted that Hetaria was written by a man, and these sorts of stories are becoming increasingly popular among young men known as 'fudanshi' (rotten boys).
  • it precisely because it is pure that it can give birth to such perverse and polymorphous possibilities.
Ariane Beldi

Animation: Outsourcing is slowly erasing Japan's anime industry - latimes.com - 3 views

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    As production houses cut costs by sending animation jobs to South Korea, India and Vietnam, the number of experienced workers in Japan is shrinking. Competitors in China are another threat to Japan's cultural icon.
Ariane Beldi

Anime Class Blog - 3 views

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    This is the blog of the Workers' Educational Association anime evening class. The first class is currently running in Central London from Tuesday 27 October to Tuesday 15 December 2009. Helen McCarthy is leading the class and will moderate the blog. The weekly handouts with notes, reading lists, viewing lists and links will be posted here on their own pages - see the right hand sidebar. There is also an expanded reading list - class members are welcome to add their own suggestions for further reading about anime, either on the reading list page or in their own posts.
Nele Noppe

Cartoon physics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Anime physics can be considered a subset of cartoon physics.
  • important distinction to make is that while the rules of Western cartoon physics are used as a source of comedy, several of the following are used in perfectly serious situations with the intent of conveying genuine drama or action.
  • many of these laws only apply to the shōnen genre.
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  • Dramatic moments tend to distort time, either by slowing it down (usually long enough to call out the name of an attacker or the name of the "special move" used in the attack, or for bystanders to comment on the situation), or by looping three times. Similarly, transformations (especially those animated with stock footage) also seem to stop time until completed, allowing them to be used to counter attacks, or not allowing the person to be attacked while performing them. Death is not instantaneous to significant characters. Permanent death is also a rare occurrence. Humans are capable of instantaneously freezing into solid ice or transforming into stone when surprised and/or embarrassed. In lesser cases, a person's forehead will instantly turn blue. When a character is in an extremely pensive mood, the entire area around him/her will disappear into a featureless black void, while he/she remains illuminated by a misty light coming from an unknown but vertically located source. Intense emotion can be manifest in audible artifacts as well as physical/visual ones. For example, intense grief or concern imparts a slow repeat echo to the human voice in dramatic situations, even when appropriately placed reflective surfaces are not present. However, the amount of echo thus imparted is inversely proportional to the number of words, with anguished cries of another person's name usually receiving the most echo.
  • In a series where characters change size, the opponents must be of the same size to battle. The hero(es) cannot use their mech or their larger form to squish the monster, nor can the monster grow and squish the hero(es). This is also found in Tokusatsu series, especially Super Sentai, but not in Kaiju films, where monsters such as Godzilla often stomp humans at will. Sorrowful crying with much feeling can force tears to gush out like waterfalls. Usually used only during humorous situations, while in dramatic situations, the tear flow is more realistic. Angry scolding to another character causes the scolder to enlarge and grow sharp fangs while the person being scolded will shrink. Attacks strong enough to shred entire planets will not destroy anyone's clothes or hair. Conversely, certain explosions can destroy a female character's clothing without significantly harming her body—in some cases, without her initially noticing this. Any fire-based attack on a character will not completely burn his/her clothes but will leave black stains instead.
  • A single cut can be made swiftly, cleanly. This is possible with any object, particularly with hands, paper, swords, and even air. A sword, especially a katana, can cleanly cut through anything, even including large objects (such as ships) and hair, but not through other swords. There is a slight loophole in this law - if an expert fighter (even if using hand-to-hand techniques) wishes to end a duel with an obviously lesser opponent in an appropriately dramatic way, he can execute an appropriately dramatic attack that destroys his opponent's weapon-often without their knowledge; after completing a seemingly successful attack, they will notice the expert is unharmed and look at their weapon quizzically, at which point it will either fall into two cleanly cut pieces (in a dramatic battle) or shatter like glass (in a comedic battle). Wooden katanas (bokken) can cut just as well as the real thing (and are almost never destroyed by the aforementioned loophole), if not better. Faster than light travel is possible with many characters, particularly those engaged in martial art battles; and so a vehicle is not required. Trains and other unlikely forms of transportation can fly, through either technology or magic. And the bigger it is, the faster it moves. Any female can, if angered by someone, pull out a wooden rice mallet, of any proportions, from hammerspace and hit the offender with it to let go of some aggressions. It should be noted that, no matter how large the mallet is, or how flat the offender gets after the pounding, he/she will always revert to original shape without having to experience any lasting health deterioration from the whole ordeal. A good example of this is in the anime Pokémon: when Misty explained her hatred of bugs, she whacked Caterpie with a rice mallet.
  • Death can be suspended until it is appropriate, suspenseful, or ironic. During the end part of some battles, characters may opt to charge at one another with their sword, meaning to chop the other in half. At the point of contact, all that will be seen is a bright white slash going across the screen, but it will remain unclear who is hurt. The two characters will then stay, kneeling on the floor, facing away from each other, until the evil character falls into pieces, having been killed minutes earlier. For added dramatic effect, the good character will clutch the area that they were hit or cough up blood, after the two have performed their attacks and are facing away from each other, making it appear as though they lost. A few moments later, the evil character will fall to the ground, defeated. Also note, death is never, under ANY circumstance, certain, a character can be impaled, literally from navel to nose and come back later, unscathed. Every human body contains 16 gallons of blood under high pressure-a familiar term used is 'to make it rain blood'. This will not occur if whatever inflicts the wound is left in it, which allows the attacker to withdraw it, turn, wipe it clean and put it away-blood may begin spraying from the wound like a firehose after any one of these actions. Alternatively, the mortally wounded character may pull it out himself and use it to execute a final attack. Non-impaling wounds, such as being crushed or falling from a great height, usually do not cause these geysers of blood, but nosebleeds will often fountain impressively immediately upon a character's recognition of appropriate portions of an attractive female body. This is apparently true conversely, as sexual innuendo in the form of a guitar causes significant nosebleeds in the female cast of FLCL. Loud noises, such as screams of anguish and explosions, can be heard from space. All sounds can be transmitted in space, e.g. transmitted differently then with air-compression waves. Band-aids heal anything and everything, especially when applied with care. Any pain inflicted in a humorous fashion will almost never cause any lasting damage.
  • Whenever a female character falls down while running in any non-humorous scene, she will almost certainly sprain her ankle in such a way that movement becomes impossible. Furthermore, if the character is the leading female character, she will be found or be in the company of the male lead and he will carry her on his back, sparking a deeper romantic interest. Should two characters of the opposite sex fall within proximity of each other, the male's face will end up planted in the female's crotch or chest. Skirts will helpfully flip up to provide maximum humiliation to both parties, and shirts will open to reveal maximum cleavage. Towels will fly off both parties for this same reason. In the rare occasion that the female is wearing pants, the male will instead be on top of the female while groping the female's breast(s). In a similar sexual vein, a pre-adolescent girl will blossom out with full breasts and hips, sometimes growing instantly out of her clothing (common in erotic manga.) Characters, mostly men, can run perfectly and quickly, with their arms trailing behind them or sticking straight out from their sides. This is often done in a comical fashion, and possibly fleeing from an angered female character.
  • The hero always wins with two exceptions a. the other guy cheated b. the other guy is a master at fighting or something b1. Amendment: no matter how strong the other guy is, the hero will be able to beat him or her with an intense compacted training session, usually in the span of one day(unless handwaving time compression technology is available, enabling the hero to accomplish weeks or months of training in that same period of time). b2. Amendment: the other guy can win, but the hero will then proceed to train while dead in a variety of ultimate techniques, and will then return from the dead. All but the last technique trained in will cause damage, but will not defeat the other guy. The hero will then use the final technique. This technique often is said to result in death for the user, but almost always fails to do so. b3. Amendment: the other guy will eventually like the hero and instantly switch sides, often including a tear jerking, episode long flashback that involves crying, childhood memories, and random other events involving the other guy, often in the middle of a battle with time standing still (Often in tandem with first example). In most manga series the main characters (most times a boy) will always be secretly coveted by a girl, which later blooms into a relationship. In some occasions, some characters' injuries heal much quicker. (i.e. One Piece) No matter the relative strengths or abilities, a male character always takes a maximum amount of damage when punched by an angry female character in a comedic manner (often with the male being knocked bodily to the ground or across a room)
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    Animephysics can be considered a subset of cartoon physics.
Nele Noppe

China, tourism feature in huge 'anime' convention | The Japan Times Online - 0 views

  • The Tokyo International Anime Fair 2009 kicked off Wednesday to a cheerful start, featuring a mix of both domestic and overseas companies presenting their newest products and exploring new marketing methods ranging from "anime" tourism to online broadcasting.
  • Reflecting the difficult economic times, however, many of the symposiums held in the first two business days had to do with future funding and marketing strategies for the industry.
  • Hideaki Tokutake of Japan Location Market — an organization promoting regional development through tourism, and a host of one of the symposiums — emphasized the growing potential of animation tourism.
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  • San-Francisco based anime-sharing site Crunchyroll is another newcomer to the fair. It hosted a symposium Wednesday on the future of Internet broadcasting.
  • The first Japanese-Chinese joint TV cartoon, based on the Chinese historical novel "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms," will be broadcast across China.
Nele Noppe

'Anime,' 'manga' grab spotlight at major exhibition | The Japan Times Online - 0 views

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    Backed by the culture ministry, the organizers awarded prizes valued between ¥150,000 and ¥600,000 for media-based works in four categories: art, manga (comics), entertainment and anime (animation).
Nele Noppe

Japan's Planned Child Porn Law Exempts Manga, Anime - Anime News Network - 0 views

  • preparing legislation that will make possession of child pornography illegal for the first time in the country. The tentatively planned legislation does not ban so-called "virtual" child pornography — material such as some manga, anime, and games that explicitly depict fictional children.
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    preparing legislation that will make possession of child pornography illegal for the first time in the country. The tentatively planned legislation does not ban so-called "virtual" child pornography - material such as some manga, anime, and games that explicitly depict fictional children.
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