After reading a post by oOgA about another blog post he saw I’d like to give my personal opinions on the subject.

First off obviously this person has an agenda and like most people he is pandering to an audience of adults who have children and want to scare them away from anime, by making the material sound as bad as possible.

If I met this guy I’d give him an ear full he is very manipulating and is clearing manipulating events and situations to make the worst and to scare away people from a very good community of very nice people and fans of an art form.

I’m sorry our favorite type of medium isn’t normal sorry we aren’t watching more movies or buying the latest CDs pushed on  us by big corporations and were not being a puppet like everyone else. We are all unique and we all have our reasons why we watch anime.

The person who wrote the blog reminds me of a rather infamous person here in America his name, Jack Thompson.

Many of you are probably aware of Japanese anime (Japanese animation or Japanimation) because of popular kids shows like Pokemon, Speed Racer or Star Blazers. Prior to release in the west, these shows have been cleaned up from their original violent and sexually explicit hentai (perverted) form which most Japanese cartoons seem to take. Fortunately these shows are edited and re dubbed without all the violent and sexual content when they are released in the United States.

Pokemon, speed racer, or star blazers to name a few contain no such hentai I have read a few episodes of Pokemon were not released in America due to the fact in one episode misty competes in a swimsuit contest and the producers of the American version found it not appropriate for the key demographic this case kids being in the ages of 7 - 12 most likely. All the author is doing is using anime titles the reader could possibly relate to and say “Oh I’ve heard of that show before” nothing more their have been several other anime shows aimed at children that have caught on in popularity namely digimon or card captor sakura and One Piece.

On the subject of One Piece, the rights have been turned over to ADV and ADV has gone so far to re dub episodes from where the original left off with all the content that was originally edited out AND it airs during the prime time slot on Cartoon Network when kids would most likely be watching. Why would cartoon network do such a thing or allow such a thing? maybe because their is a demand maybe America is sick of having their material filtered and being shown what is good for our children maybe the parents finally are getting to make the choices and not the broadcasters.

Make no mistake about it though: unlike in America, in Japan cartoons aren’t just for children. Probably due to the high cost of big budget live-action productions, a number of programs are produced for Japanese adults in the animation format.

Yes but I would think it has nothing to do with cost, animation and manga have been popular forms of entertainment in Japan for years. The last time I checked America had adult theme cartoons too just to name a few, South Park, The Boondocks, Bevis & Butthead, Family Guy. Many of these shows aired or do air during prime time on big networks each show contains and warning or a advisory saying may not be suitable for all ages, not all cartoons have to be made just for kids their are many different mediums on which you can tell a story.

Often these are shown late at night to keep them away from children, but even the cartoons shown to children are violent, sexual in nature and make numerous references to magic and demons with no mention of G-d or Jesus. That’s because most Asians do not believe in G-d, but rather in primitive religions such as Buddhism or Shintoism (paganism).

Why is the author mentioning god, how the Asians or Japanese culture relates to religion has NOTHING TO DO WITH ANIME!! These adult shows are shown at 2am or later in the early, early morning hours for a reason. Also for the record many of todays westernized “anime” such as Pokemon, card captor Sakura also use magic and demons what the fuck are pokemon? I don’t see a pikachu running around my backyard, Plus I thought the cartoons for children were edited and re dubbed with out the “hentai or violent” themes now the author is back tracking on earlier remarks he made so what is it going to be?

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (When they Cry) and Violence
Recently a couple of gruesome events took place in Japan which require the attention of parents in Japan and the world, including the United States. In usually peaceful Japan, violent acts mimicking an anime have rightly shocked the Japanese public and caused a number of television stations to suspend broadcast of the anime series.

Tokai Television Broadcasting Co. (Tokai TV) has decided to cancel screenings of the anime “Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai” because of violent scenes it contains, it has been learned.

The broadcaster made the decision following an incident in which a Kyoto Prefectural Police officer was murdered in an ax attack by his 16-year-old daughter. The anime contains a scene in which a girl is pictured swinging an ax, and after Tokai TV received information about the anime from viewers, it decided to cancel the program.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG anime wrong reasoning behind it, School Days was the first anime to cause alarm and the show was put on indefinite hold. Than another murder happened that make When they cry (higurashi) get the same fate. Was it correct maybe, maybe not but this guy acts like it’s the first time something has been put on hold or not shown do the events that take place in the world.

Full Metal Panic was not shown because in the second episode a plane gets hijacked well a little something called 9/11 took place where something very similar took place eventually like in the case of School Days and When They Cry the episodes continued to be shown after a short delay due to the events. By the way When They Cry was never canceled they took a week off and the next week they began re running episodes.

I had read elsewhere that the girl was an aspiring mangaka (manga, Japanese comic book, artist). So it is pretty simple to conclude that she was heavily into anime and manga. The image on the right comes from the Higurashi manga - it’s quite similar to the crime (click the image to enlarge).

I want to see a source for that! also the author is assuming that the girl liked anime or was “heavily” into anime for all we know she could of liked manga and stayed away from anime all together. This author cites no source on this so I call BULLSHIT on this entire sentence.

What is Higurashi?

It seems the anime is based on a Japanese-only murder simulation computer game written by doujin (amateurs) group 07th Expansion and sold to ravenous otakusComiket (obsessed anime geeks and loners) at (Comic Market, an unauthorized annual gathering of otaku, obsessed anime fans, and amateur artists in Tokyo, Japan). Here’s a brief description of the game:

“The game is about a series of mysterious deaths in a mountain village. A young girl protagonist is suffering trauma from the divorce of her parents. She uses a hatchet to kill her enemies.”

That’s a great message to send, isn’t it? And its fans cite Higurashi (”When They Cry”) as a kewl show about “killer lolis.” Loli refers to lolita, meaning a very young and sexually active girl, inspired by the perverse and notorious novel Lolita written in 1955 by Vladimir Nabakov.

So because an anime is dark and is a mystery and has to do about murder it’s a bad thing? Look at the newest films look at the majority of the films released in the last two years how many horror flicks have been released that are very disturbing to watch, SAW comes to mind and another I can’t think of off the top of my head that was so graphic it still had to be edited for theaters.

Once again Otaku get a bad name let me say this again, no matter what form of media or object there is always someone out there who goes over board or takes it too far. PC enthusiasts, gadget enthusiasts, car collectors, coin collectors, DVD collectors, game collectors. The list can go on and on. He’s just putting a bad spin on anime fans.

and of course we were upset but it’s not like we boycotted or wrote nasty letters to the TV stations or anime companies demanding they show the show no we were upset that the show put on hold and there was no word on if it was the end or what was going on. Many fans were understanding of the situation and sympathized for the victim and condemned the actions of the child. I didn’t read anime fans jumping for joy hearing a young girl murdered her father no I read sympathy, understanding and frustration, frustration because nobody knew what the fate held for the show. If Grey’s Anatomy was put on hold next week due to a scandal at a hospital or something I think many fans of Grey’s Anatomy would re act in the same way they would be angry because they wanted to see the show.

But I also think they’d understand the salutation and reasoning behind it. The author here makes it sound like obsessed loser anime fans with no jobs or friends who are out to do no good for anyone caused havoc and pandemonium do the show being put on hold. Again give me a break.

I have discovered through researching this article that there are a number of fans of this disturbing series beyond Japan’s borders. In fact, English speaking fans from all over the world were collectively crying about not being able to get their violence fix when a recent episode didn’t air (due to the axe murder).

How can this be? Hardly anyone outside of Japan has any reason to learn Japanese. Further investigation revealed an underground distribution network. Read on.

For the first part of the writing please see my above answer. But to the part of “hardly anyone outside of Japan has any reason to learn Japanese” that is just ignorant plain in simple why wouldn’t someone want to learn a another language it’s good use to know how to speak several languages and it can be beneficial in your everyday life. Just plain stupidly on part of the author of this blog post.

It turns out that there are a group of criminals, known euphemistically as “fansubbers” who routinely pirate hentai (perverted) and ecchi (adult) anime when it airs in Japan. Computer files containing the captured video, known by insiders as raws, appear on illicit websites immediately after broadcast.

Again another stupid comment made by this person, Anime can’t be packaged for non Japanese speaking people’s the same goes for American movies, TV shows or any other countries shows that aren’t done in English. There are fansubs for new release movies, TV shows and other stuff for other countries, and once again the author tries to push the envelope by trying to proclaim all anime is sexy and filth another ignorant statement.

Fan subbing has a very grey undefined line right now so it is un-fair to call these people criminals.

Fansubbers quickly translate the dialogue into English and add subtitles using computer software. They then release this dangerous material, without permission, to the world on numerous clandestine websites which hungry anime fans (including lots of impressionable children) enthusiastically download and watch secretively.

Since when does subbed anime because dangerous, oh shit we shouldn’t have closed captioning for the hearing impaired that’s dangerous. ANIME IS NOT DANGEROUS and it’s the freaking internet there is no police so if a kid downloads something they aren’t suppose to blame the parents there is software out there called net nanny which the parent can filter what the child has access too. God this guy is getting on my nerves.

An objectionable show can air in Japan and be available as a fansub (fan subtitled video) within 24 hours! Using “file sharing” (piracy) software such as BitTorrent (or BT), these fansubbed anime episodes can be downloaded in less than an hour. That’s a pretty impressive turnaround.

It can take months for a legitimate American company to clean up and redub offensive raw anime into a form more suitable for western audiences. But anime fans want “pure” and uncut material that would otherwise never be allowed to be viewed outside of the perverted otaku subculture in Japan.

Now the author is simply pushing his beliefs on us calling anime objectionable material. Like the author stated early many of the sexually base, violent nature type of anime airs at times such as 2am so kids won’t be around to watch it. Plus American anime companies attempt at their best to keep things “pure” look at Gantz look at how bloody and gruesome that show is NOTHING WAS CUT FROM IT. Plus it can take months for a legitimate company BULL SHIT it can TAKE YEARS! these anime companies don’t gobble up everything in site they pick and choose and many times the shows are left unlicensed for several years at some times until it’s picked up or it’s picked up by a company because of fansubbing on the internet

The fans of the show make it popular and make it appealing for the companies to sink their money into a product and make it available for purchase legally. besides the companies have to hire voice actors, production people, printing companies to make the disc and DVD jackets that make it into retail. The author is making assumptions and bogus facts and lies about fansubbing and the internet anime community.

How many times has a DVD been released of a TV show that didn’t feature extended episode material or deleted material that was too risque to air on TV but is fine to do on DVD? See my point?

The reason this is important is that children have access to this material and may be collecting it and watching it without their parents’ knowledge. And for good reason. Anime often contains graphic sex, intense violence and rampant perversion involving young pre-teen girls. These cartoons are not suitable for children.

Now replace the word anime with video game or music, don’t you love how that sentence is so easy to manipulate? Blame the parents if your kid is watching or doing something you don’t like then stop them put safeguards up if you don’t then it’s your own fault when little Timmy starts acting like Eminem or in this case like Ash from Pokemon.

Otakus are not harmless geeks. Even the Japanese people look down on these losers who are mostly segregated to Akihabara/Akiba, also known as the otaku mecca. A number of otaku in Japan have turned to rape and murder as an outlet for their perversions. Many of these deviants are not able to interact with normal people and often develop obsessive and unnatural desires and interests.

Oh my god he read about a few people who did such actions on wikipeida that must mean all anime fans are anti-social no good people who hate the outside world. Shit I’d better call my boss and quit my job, go tear up my college degree and stop dating my girlfriend according to this guy I’m a monster, Boy I’m so glad this guy showed me the light!

There is this little thing called a disease your brain isn’t right and you act without thinking there are several thousand murders a year in the world just because some people like a hobby doesn’t mean they are bad people. If this were true why do anime conventions exist? according to this guy we don’t like people were anti-social. Again this author is using a small number of instances and the media coverage on them to push is agenda and scare tactics.

I hope this information, while not related to politics in general and Sam Brownback in particular, is useful to those of you with children and husbands who may find themselves seduced by anime. It may look cute or like kiddie cartoons, but there is sickness just below the surface. Like internet pornography, Japanese anime can be addictive and destructive.

So apparently his audience is a married female eh? I hope that she isn’t this stupid and can see the manipulated bulshit this author has written, he makes himself sound hollar then thou and I just don’t plain like people like that. Anything can become addicting we can all over do something it’s one choice, people eat too much and become fat, we don’t shun them we offer them help and understanding.

In the end this author clearly has an agenda and using facts he found on the interwebs he paints nothing but a gloomy disturbing picture of anime fans. He doesn’t mention anything positive and always puts the worst spin on anime in general.

I say if you’re going to report on something, be fair and balanced don’t spin it around .. I bet this loser works for a church or is trying to silicate donations to continue his crusade. This guy reminds me a lot of Jack Thompson.

LINK TO ORGINAL ARTICLE: http://blogs4brownback.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/anime-encourages-murder/

Admin’s (oOgA) note: The following pictures and fan art are not related to the article in any way. Source of pictures from Animesuki.