Mr. Tines wrote:It's one of the notorious titles that's frequently heard of, if not so often watched

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I have this feeling, and I expect this to be reasonably uncontroversial, that the Golden Age of Anime is 14

What about kids anime? I've been watching Digimon since I was 10. Dragon Ball Z and Speed Racer far earlier than that. First saw G Gundam before I was 13. Not to mention Miyazaki films.

Macross is unrealistic because out of all the genres they could use to fuck with an alien race that literally cannot comprehend the idea of music to the point of going absolutely batshit whenever they hear it, they went with vanilla-ass idol pop.

^Add to the fact that they were trying to play up "universal elements" that "never change", things that could be found even with the ruins of ancient alien civilizations, and chose to represent these sentiments with an in-the-now soundtrack that had as much staying power as an icicle amidst spring. Or Avatar once people got past the fancy tech visuals.

That's why Black Heaven exists. Well, that and the whitest black dude voice ever.

chee wrote:Macross is unrealistic because out of all the genres they could use to fuck with an alien race that literally cannot comprehend the idea of music to the point of going absolutely batshit whenever they hear it, they went with vanilla-ass idol pop.

What? The idol stuff actually has a purpose in Macross? I've never seen the show but I always assumed the idols were there for the romance. Not the first time I've heard of using music to fight aliens, but it's still surprising.

That's why you listen to FIYA BOMBA instead

chee wrote:Macross is unrealistic because out of all the genres they could use to fuck with an alien race that literally cannot comprehend the idea of music to the point of going absolutely batshit whenever they hear it, they went with vanilla-ass idol pop.

I'm really not a fan of Macross, but from what I've gathered, the power of merchandise-sales quadruples due to the power of pandering idol pop, which in turn results in better animation to veil the boring ass story from falling apart before the aliens get obliterated.



I'm sorry.

I think the in universe explanation is, that Zentradi cannot comprehend irrational emotion, and where is there more irrational fluffiness to be found, than in Idol music...?

Didn't the Japanese idol industry start because of Macross? I doubt they'd pander to an industry that didn't exist yet.

My biased, judgmental, miopic and only partially serious opinions for your delight



-1-
Everything by Studio Ghibli, with the exception of Nausicaa, is from mildly to totally overrated. Their success is mostly due to hipster culture, fake intellectualism and sham feminism. For the general and even self-proclaimed expert audience, Ghibli's work involuntarily yet conveniently filled a niche in the world of "Japanese cartoons" that clearly was not about violence, sex and perversion, which, of course, is the bread and butter of every single other anime/manga ever to come from Japan.

Thus, it allowed wannabe intellectuals/connoisseurs of visual arts to tick the token, mandatory box of Japanese productions without the risk of being labelled as perverts.

I'd wager that no more than 20% of the Studio Ghibli audience really likes what they see, but it's an obvious "The Emperor's New Clothes" effect. More specifically, the critical mass of Ghibli fans in the Western world must have come from girls (because, again, there's no sex, violence and perversion in Miyazaki's stuff so it's socially ok for girls to watch it) with an air of pretension and a desire to look smart, with ensuing hoards of boys complying to the new creed that "Miyazaki is God" in a desperate attempt to get into said girls' pants.

-2-
Ghost in the Shell is still the greatest anime movie ever to be made bar none and its existence cuts down by 50% anything good and original that there was about the first Matrix movie (the other 50% belonging to Dark City). Ok, probably not so controversial in a way, but to me it basically means that there ain't such a thing as a 10/10 any movie other than GitS. Anything else is at best 9/10.

-3-
Q was rubbish. Unredeemable, unforgivable rubbish, although the idea of setting everything 10 years ahead in the future was genius and clearly a great way to break away from the original series

I guess it's enough bollocks for one post.

Falcon_of_the_Sun wrote:My biased, judgmental, miopic and only partially serious opinions for your delight
[...]
Q was ... setting everything 10 years ahead in the future ...

Well, obviously the best biased opinions need basic errors to establish their way-out credentials ;)

robersora wrote:I'm sorry.

You should be. Everyone ITT should be.

Macross was created to cash in on a real life Idol craze in the late 70's to early eighties. During that era Japan had a pop music renaissance that they haven't experienced before or since. So they went out of their way to shoehorn in a reason for a pop Idol to be the center of the action of what would otherwise be a pretty straightforward Star Trek space/soap opera.

Does it make the inclusion of pop idols into the plot of a sci-fi any less convuluted? No. . . but it does at least give some real life context for WHY Minmay, Sheryl, Ranka, Sharon Apple, etc. exist in the Macross universe, and why they are so relevant to the plot despite being. . . pop idols, the last thing you'd expect to see in a franchise based in Science Fiction.

Falcon_of_the_Sun wrote:-1-
Everything by Studio Ghibli, with the exception of Nausicaa, is from mildly to totally overrated. Their success is mostly due to hipster culture, fake intellectualism and sham feminism. For the general and even self-proclaimed expert audience, Ghibli's work involuntarily yet conveniently filled a niche in the world of "Japanese cartoons" that clearly was not about violence, sex and perversion, which, of course, is the bread and butter of every single other anime/manga ever to come from Japan.

Thus, it allowed wannabe intellectuals/connoisseurs of visual arts to tick the token, mandatory box of Japanese productions without the risk of being labelled as perverts.

I'd wager that no more than 20% of the Studio Ghibli audience really likes what they see, but it's an obvious "The Emperor's New Clothes" effect. More specifically, the critical mass of Ghibli fans in the Western world must have come from girls (because, again, there's no sex, violence and perversion in Miyazaki's stuff so it's socially ok for girls to watch it) with an air of pretension and a desire to look smart, with ensuing hoards of boys complying to the new creed that "Miyazaki is God" in a desperate attempt to get into said girls' pants.

Oh wow, so edgy and mature! Look at you with your contrarian opinion and baseless generalizations based on people you know nothing about! Makes you look so smart! Congratulations!

Falcon_of_the_Sun wrote:
-3-
Q was rubbish. Unredeemable, unforgivable rubbish

This is hardly a controversial opinion.

Here's a controversial opinion. Q ended on the most hopeful note of any of the films so far if you bother to read between the lines.

This IS going to be controversial, but it's embedded into anime culture and thus not going away anytime soon.

I'm sick and tired of Japanese Anime and Manga creators always designing their characters to look like white people and not like . . .well Japanese people! and I understand why they do it. They want they're characters to be instantly noticeable, and distinct! But. . . it comes off as problematic sometimes.

Look at this example. . . On the right Sakura from Naruto as she looks in the manga! On the left, how she'd look in real life!


Even more sophisticated and less cartoony series like Death Note are guilty of it! How they'd look in real life! How they look in the anime!



Sailor Moon! One of the most popular anime characters, has Blonde hair blue eyes! Hitomi from Escaflowne! Blonde hair blue eyes! Naruto! Blonde hair blue eyes! Goku! At his most powerful when he has blonde hair and blue eyes!



: You know what Toriyama is really sayin'! He's sayin' deep down, Asian people all wants to be white!

: Well isn't that true?

I don't want to assume, but after a while it seems like the Japanese people are inherently ashamed of being Asian, and in their anime and fiction seek to absolve themselves of being Asian. Due to both cultural shame about what they did to other people in the past, and the influx and reformation of their culture in the image of the west after WW2! They've been conditioned from birth into desiring whiteness! Wanting to be white! So these animators and mangaka keep designing the characters in their anime to be white people, to fufill this racial power fantasy instead of being proud of their heritage and designing their characters to look realistically Japanese!

This is also the reason why Japanese anime is popular globally, while Japanese actors are lucky to get any role in an American film that isn't a racist stereotype! American people, and the idiots in Hollywood who make live action movies based on our beloved Japanese properties (I'm lookin' at you Rupert Sanders! I hope your POS ghost in the shell movie tanks both critically and financially!) People in the west, the ignorant masses think that just because a character has blue hair and eyes she's instantly not intended to be Asian! Guess what ignorant masses, in Anime EVERYONE who isn't specifically designated to be another race, is instantly assumed to be Asian! Even those based around your oh so precious white blonde and beautiful standard of beauty!

What's wrong with having a character with a blunt nose? Blunt is beautiful! What's wrong with having an anime character who looks like an actual Japanese person and not like the blonde blue eyed Aryan archetype you've been brainwashed into accepting!

Japanese people! You look beautiful! Your black hair is beautiful! You don't have to make yourself look white in your fiction to make yourself better!

That's my controversial opinion. . . .

I'll be in my cell awaiting my inevitable crucifixion.

So you'd prefer the Japanese to use your stereotype of them rather than their own stereotype of - us? themselves? humanity in general? (I'm not sure which because I haven't actually asked them myself!)

Here's a discussion of the matter: http://www.matt-thorn.com/mangagaku/faceoftheother.html

So, character designers should stifle their creative freedom for the sake of faux-realism and perpetuation of ethnic stereotypes? Isn't saying they should only draw characters that look like their supposed ethnicity in its own way a form of censorship? The term for this practice is mukokuseki, and is meant to represent a character of neutral ethnicity. They're not white, but ambiguous. It's supposed to be a stylistic choice freed of any kind of racial or ethnic implications. So, Ray, are you seeing them as white because you're white? Even if you're not (I don't know), is it because you live in a predominantly white society? I'm sure people in primarily Japanese societies would see them as Japanese!

Another discussion, supporting what Donut just said:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/08/30/guest-post-why-do-the-japanese-draw-themselves-as-white/

Well said, PW! Ray, I'd advise you to read both articles. They do a good job of explaining the dilemma you're experiencing. Just because a character doesn't look exactly like the ethnicity would in real life doesn't mean they can't be that ethnicity-- to quote one of the articles, we can draw stick figures and easily see them as Americans, whereas if a Japanese person drew them, they'd see them as Japanese. A lot of it comes down to how we perceive ourselves and how other people perceive themselves.

To pull something else from the article PW linked above (seriously, if you only read one of them, choose the one above this post) Americans don't have the huge eyes and ridiculous hair colors that a lot of anime characters have as their kind of "default" look. When Japan wants to show Americans, they draw us differently.