Since I became an anime fan over a decade ago, I’ve been buying all sorts of anime products ranging from DVDs to artbooks and keychains. However, as I discussed in a previous post about how the US anime industry, and the media world in general, has changed over the years, my ways of buying anime couldn’t help but change as well…

The first anime series I ever bought was the first VHS volume of the subtitled version of Cardcaptor Sakura, released by Pioneer (the now deceased Geneon’s former name) sometime in 2000 or 2001. I bought it from a little privately-owned anime store in my neighborhood called Anime Plus. Considering I live in a very suburban valley of southern California, I was really lucky to have a store like that in the area. They had a great selection of anime DVDs and manga, as well as a ton of character goods like CDs, wall scrolls, plushies, and bags. I even remember buying my first anime CDs there, which were some random Japanese Pokemon CDs on sale for $5 each! Anime Plus continued to be a favorite place of mine well into high school, and I even interviewed the store owner for a project I had to do in Economics class.

As I got more into anime in my high school years, I also started buying the majority of my anime on DVD from a Suncoast (anyone remember that store?) in my local mall. For those who don’t know, Suncoast was a fun little chain of media stores that sold a variety of TV series and movies on DVD, as well as related goodies. Like Anime Plus, they also had a great selection of anime DVDs and extra goods like posters and T-shirts. My DVDs of Evangelion, Inuyasha, Fruits Basket, and Tenchi came from Suncoast, as well as some of my anime T-shirts.

Though I bought most of my anime stuff from Anime Plus and Suncoast at the time, and occasionally Best Buy and Borders, I actually started ordering some things online as soon as I got my first computer with Internet. The first thing I ever ordered online was the soundtrack of the fourth Pokemon movie from CD Japan in 2001. Another online store I discovered early on was AnimeNation, a Florida-based anime store that specializes in anime DVDs, but also sells a variety of other products such as T-shirts, bags, and plushies. Back then I usually preferred to buy my anime DVDs in person, and would only order from AnimeNation if stores didn’t have what I was looking for (which happened sometimes).

It was around the later 2000s that my anime buying habits started to change. Practically every Suncoast store was closed down in 2006, including the one I frequented, Best Buy cut down on a lot of its anime releases in 2009, and the anime selection at Borders was constantly shrinking before the whole chain closed down about a year ago. And Anime Plus, the store where I first started my anime buying over a decade ago, sadly closed down last year. But at the same time, with the advent of streaming videos and torrents, I was getting into more anime than ever before in the late 2000s, and discovering new online stores offering a better variety of products at better prices. Nowadays, just about all my anime purchases are done online or once a year when I go to Anime Expo. My favorite anime buying sites are now…

- AnimeNation: Over a decade after I first started ordering from them, I’m pleasantly surprised that AnimeNation has managed to stay in business for so long. Despite competition from RightStuf, I hope they can keep on keeping on!

- Hobby Search: Like AmiAmi, this is a great site for anime character goods, with an emphasis on figures.

- CD Japan: Like AnimeNation, over ten years after I first ordered from them, CD Japan is still going strong. Since I lost interest in buying CDs, in recent years I mostly use them to get my annual imported anime calendars.

- YesAsia: YesAsia has a good variety of imported Asian products, including anime, electronics, games, and collectibles. So far I’ve only used them to buy Japanese versions of Pokemon games.

And besides, the above mentioned sites, general stores like Amazon are great places to buy anime. I’d only recommend eBay if you’re looking for something really specific that’s hard to find elsewhere.

Compared to the beginning of my fandom, I don’t buy much anime in person anymore. Besides my quick once-a-year buying spree at Anime Expo, the most I’ll do is browse around what remains of the anime section at Best Buy and occasionally buy something. But for the past few years, my anime buying has increasingly become an online-only thing. The bad economy, media stores becoming obsolete, our society becoming more and more technology-based, wanting to save money and have a better variety of products to choose from – these reasons and more are why my anime buying habits have changed over the years. I do miss the old days when I would go in person to stores that had a great selection of anime. But as long as I can keep getting my anime stuff, whether in person or online, I’ll be happy =)

Feel free to share your history with buying anime and/or mention good places to buy from, in the comments below.

*Announcement*: After five months of unemployment, I finally started a new job a couple of weeks ago =D I’m going to be an office receptionist/assistant for a mobile veterinary clinic. I’m still in the training phase but it’s going well. I’m not going to be working everyday, but unfortunately I’ll still have to cut down my blogging time a bit. For the past few months I’ve had a new post roughly every three days, so that’s going to change to one new post a week. As for what day each week, that will constantly change depending on my schedule. So I’ll be back with a new post next week either Wed. or Sun., not sure which yet. And as always, you can follow me on Twitter to see when a new post goes up or if there’s any delays. See you soon~

When we think of a fellow anime fan as an “elitist,” it usually means that they have some kind of elevated view of how anime – and to a certain extent, its fans – should be, and they deride what doesn’t live up to that view. The most common ideas associated with anime elitists is that they believe the only good anime are the ones that are distinctly creative and intellectually stimulating, or that the only true fans are those that watch anime using strictly legal methods…

Even though I can enjoy pretty much all genres of anime (I have my favorites of course), I don’t think there’s anything wrong with someone who likes only one or two genres. The problem comes when the person starts making negative judgements about anime they don’t watch and thus know little to nothing about. Ignorance is one of my pet peeves, especially when it entails just that – bashing something that you only have a vague idea about and having little to no experience to back up your claim. To illustrate with an example, let’s say there’s someone who mostly watches action/mecha anime and decides that all moe/slice-of-life anime is terrible. They claim all anime in that genre are boring, stupid, perverted, and cliche, and they don’t miss an opportunity to mock fans of the genre either. That to me is a form of elitism – making these grandiose claims about an entire genre of anime and its fans, especially when you have little first-hand knowledge about it.

So then, let’s say this person decides to give one moe/slice-of-life anime a try – Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai for example – and as expected, they hated it. But does watching one anime among hundreds from a genre suddenly give a ton of merit to their extreme claims about the genre as a whole? The fact that even within a genre there’s still such a variety of series and storytelling methods, is one of the many great things about anime. Even though Naruto and Death Note are both classified as shonen anime, Code Geass and Macross Frontier are both classified as mecha, and Hanasaku Iroha and Clannad are both classified as slice-of-life, one series in each pair is very different in style, theme, story, etc., from the other. With that said, it’s hard to put a solid number on how many series from a genre one should watch in order to be considered very knowledgeable about that genre. Going back to my original example, while I certainly think the person could make claims about Haganai since they did indeed watch it, I don’t feel they can do the same about the whole of slice-of-life anime based on one series.

I think there’s a simple solution to get your point across without the need to sound elitist. Rather than claim that all slice-of-life (or whatever genre of anime) is stupid, cliche, etc., you can just say “I find this genre of anime stupid” or “This genre of anime tends to bore me,” or something similar. When you add yourself to the statement, it makes it sound like you’re speaking from personal taste and it doesn’t sound like you’re trying to make your opinion a fact. Like CyborgCommunist said in a recent post, at the end of the day, whether something is good or not depends on the individual and not things like popularity or what kind of talent is behind it. But at the same time, if I’m going to pass a very subjective statement about a certain anime series or genre as true, I would feel obligated to be familiar with what I’m judging and provide evidence from first-hand experience, like I did with my criticism of season 2 of Nogizaka Haruka for example. There’s a difference between the sentences “Moe anime is bad and shouldn’t exist” and “I find moe anime stupid and pointless.” The latter sounds less elitist than the former. You have every right to make the former claim too of course, but I would take you much more seriously if you offer some reasoning for your statement and show that you have at least some first-hand experience with the anime you’re judging so harshly. The best arguments are those that stem from a variety of first-hand knowledge about the subject and not just vague notions of it gotten second-hand from people who probably share the same tastes as you anyway.

The reason I use moe/slice-of-life anime a lot in my examples is because it’s the genre that’s the main target for elitists. I’m not gonna go into detail here since I already did in previous posts. But I’ll just say another sign of elitism is having elevated expectations that all anime should be intellectually or artistically stimulating and should never be just pure pandering entertainment. Going so far as to say that fan-pandering anime (moe, slice-of-life, harem, yaoi/yuri, ecchi) is bad for the industry, when it’s really what’s making the industry do well in Japan, is again claiming that all anime should be as one sees fit rather than cater to different tastes. I don’t have any interest in ecchi or hentai anime, but if there’s a market for them that’s bringing profit to anime companies and joy to fans, I don’t have a problem with them. As long as anime I like is still available, every series that comes out doesn’t need to match my tastes. As for the other elitist idea that one should be 100% “pure” and legal in order to be a true fan is unrealistic. Can we really say that the person who watches tons of anime, some legally and some illegally, blogs about anime, and basically eats, sleeps, and breathes anime, isn’t as true a fan as the person who casually watches anime once in a while but always legally? I certainly think a true fan is someone who tries to financially support the industry when and if they can, but shouldn’t feel guilty for not shelling out money for every anime series they watch. For an easily accessible hobby like anime, I think passion speaks louder than money.

To conclude, I know this is the Internet and there will always be elitists who make grandiose statements about everything they dislike without offering sincere reasons and sneering at everyone of a differing taste, as well as reasonable people who are critical but make honest efforts to explain why they feel the way they do and respect others’ tastes. I’m sure you already know which camp you’re in by now and anything I’ve said here won’t change your mind. Just wanted to get my two cents out there.

As I’ve grown out of student-hood these past few years and moved on to being what the Japanese call a “shakaijin” (person of society), I’ve been taking the word “nostalgia” more to heart. I’ve often wondered, “How old does one have to be in order to feel nostalgic?” And while pondering this questions, I’d like to pay tribute to some old anime that hold particularly nostalgic memories for me…

While I’ve known the word “nostalgia” for a long time, it’s only recently that I’ve understood what it means by experiencing it myself. The first wave of nostalgia I remember came less than five years ago when I discovered that episodes of an old CG animated cartoon from the 90s I used to love called Beast Wars (based on the Transformers concept) had been uploaded to Veoh and I started watching it. It brought back memories not just of the show itself, but of what my life was like back then and how I viewed things at that age, compared to how I am now. That’s what nostalgia is to me – when you reach a point in your life where you can clearly perceive the line between the “then” and the “now,” and often you pine for something in the “then” that you can’t have now. It’s not just “Oh yeah, I remember that!” so much as remembering the feelings and lifestyle you had during the time you experienced the nostalgic object in question. This is why I think one has to reach adulthood, or close to it, in order to really understand nostalgia; since children tend to live in the moment, they don’t compare their past and present the way adults do. It’s when you reach that point in life where things become more busy and complicated that you’re finally able to compare it to the simpler times of the past through remembering these nostalgic things, whether it’s a place, TV show, book, movie, or even a smell or sound.

While I didn’t discover anime until late in my childhood, things have changed enough for me since then that I can feel nostalgic about certain titles I watched early in my fandom. I’ve found that any show or movie has to be at least ten years old in order for me to feel nostalgic about it. Hence, all of my nostalgic anime are from the 90s or very early 2000s. I watched a lot more than this in my early years as a fan, but these are the ones that are most nostalgic to me (though not necessarily my favorites). Do they make you nostalgic, too?

Pokemon (original series)

Nostalgic associations: I was still in middle school when I got into Pokemon and I would time-record all the episodes on VHS when they would air on Kids’WB. I played the old GameBoy games on my GameBoy Color and would often trade pokemon with others through the games’ link cable feature. I collected the trading cards and would go to my local mall every weekend and play the card game there, earning badges and sometimes prizes. I was also a big Rocketshipper. I had a friend that I chatted with about Pokemon almost every night and we’d even watch some of our recorded episodes together over the phone.

Cardcaptor Sakura

Nostalgic associations: I had never heard Japanese sung or spoken before CCS. Having watched the dub of CCS before discovering the Japanese version, I also learned how horrendous dubbed kids anime was back then (not that it’s a big deal now). I started collecting the series on subtitled VHS released by Pioneer, which was Geneon’s old name, at a local anime store (which sadly doesn’t exist anymore) before switching to DVD later.

Jubei-chan

Nostalgic associations: This was the first non-kids anime I ever watched and the first I bought fully on dubbed VHS. I didn’t mind the dub then but if I watched it now it would probably be pretty bad. Despite that, it was still a very funny show. I still especially love the ending song.

Slayers

Nostalgic associations: During my freshman year of high school, one of my good friends who I still see today invited me to her house to watch Slayers for the first time. I liked it very much and later bought season 1 dubbed on VHS. I bought the other two seasons on DVD and watched them on my old iMac computer until I finally got a DVD player.

Bakuretsu Hunters

Nostalgic associations: I think DVDs of Bakuretsu Hunters were among the first DVDs I ever watched, again on my old iMac computer. I liked both the dubbed and subbed version back then, but when I think about it now, the dub voices were pretty bad. The OP was an example of coolness back in the day.

Record of Lodoss War

Nostalgic associations: I think I saw this series strictly on VHS. I liked the OVA better because it was more focused on Deedlit, my favorite character in the series. Also, the dub of the TV series wasn’t so good despite having Crispin Freeman as the main protagonist (maybe he just wasn’t experienced enough back then?) But the OP of the Lodoss War TV series is still one of the best openings I’ve seen to this day.

Chobits

Nostalgic associations: I read Chobits by borrowing the manga volumes from a friend. I watched a few episodes of the anime dubbed by coming across them in RealPlayer files online…how old-school is that? I liked the “City With No People” storybooks featured in the series so much that I actually scanned them all on my old computer and sort of recreated the books on my site.

Fushigi Yuugi

Nostalgic associations: Fushigi Yuugi used to air dubbed on the International Channel (which I don’t even think exists anymore). I didn’t have cable TV then so a friend of mine recorded the episodes on VHS for me. I read the manga by borrowing it from a friend. At one point my group of high school friends were so into this series that we started nicknaming each other after certain characters. I believe I was Nuriko since he was my favorite character :3

Tenchi Muyo!

Nostalgic associations: Like Fushigi Yuugi, I borrowed VHS tapes recorded from Toonami from friends in order to watch Tenchi. I loved it right away and eventually bought the DVDs, again using my old iMac as a DVD player before getting a real one. I was glad that Pioneer’s DVDs included the non-censored versions of some of the more violent/dodgy episodes, but upset that they included “dubtitles” for their Tenchi Universe episodes. I eventually sold most of my Tenchi DVDs and stopped collecting the manga.

Love Hina

Nostalgic associations: Unlike most other series, I only read the 14 volumes of the Love Hina manga and didn’t get a chance to watch the anime until years later. If I recall correctly, there was some fan service gags but nothing too ecchi…it was actually pretty funny. I remember laughing out loud to myself at certain parts of the manga, which I rarely do.

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Nostalgic associations: I borrowed the Utena manga and anime on subbed VHS from a friend of mine who was really into romance/shojo series (I also borrowed Chobits, Love Hina, and Fushigi Yuugi from her). Besides Eva, I hadn’t yet seen an anime that messes with your head as much as Utena.

Trigun

Nostalgic associations: Vash was one of my first and biggest anime crushes :3 The Trigun DVD box set was also one of the first I purchased along with Tenchi Universe. I liked both the dubbed and subbed versions.

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I didn’t mention some of my bigger old favorites like Digimon, Inuyasha, Naruto, and Evangelion. The reason – like Pokemon, Digimon and Naruto are still ongoing now, Eva is still as talked about as ever and has new movies coming out, and for Inuyasha, it hasn’t been that long since the anime and manga ended.

Like I mentioned, it’s not so much what these old anime are about that makes them nostalgic to me; it’s the time in my life that I experienced them and those past feelings and memories that I now associate with them. Being in school at the time, having things like VHS and CDs, anime on Toonami and Adult Swim, stores with anime that don’t exist anymore, when Geneon and ADV were booming and the only way I could watch anime was through DVDs and TV – all those things add up to a time and place very different from now, and it’s finding that distinction between a simpler, more innocent past and a more complicated, busy present, that bring out nostalgia.

For the final part of the Anime Blog Carnival that I posted earlier this week, here are my concluding thoughts on some things I got out of the project…

After writing my post for the carnival’s topic of what makes a 10/10 anime, I read through other participants’ posts, many of which brought up points that I found intriguing:

Sam brought up the point of an anime’s age. Obviously older anime can’t be judged by the same technological standards as the anime of today. Also, one should take into account the anime’s target audience when examining its writing. Even if the genre isn’t your cup of tea, are you able to take a step back and look at it through the eyes of the target audience? (I guess this would be part of the head scoring I mentioned). Of course, not everyone would want to base their scoring systems on this, I just thought it was a good suggestion.

Marow brought up the idea that establishing exactly how a reviewer uses scoring is essential. After all, two people’s 10/10 scoring, or even 9/10, 8/10, etc., could be for very different reasons and mean very different things. He also brought up a great distinction in one’s viewing experience that could determine an anime’s rating – whether one simply watches an anime or experiences it. I’ve found that for all of my highly rated series, I did indeed experience them and was not simply entertained by them.

Nopy opted to make three criteria for determining a 10/10 anime: decent production values, likable characters, and constant attention. Like Sam mentioned, I believe it’s important to take the year the anime was produced into consideration when looking at its production values, but certainly an anime with good production values for its time is more likely to get a higher rating. If we see a lot of care put into the animation, setting design, music, etc., we’re in turn more inclined to care about what we’re watching. The constant attention criteria is interesting, as Nopy uses it to override “story” for how much the show is able to keep our attention. And with that, even slice-of-life anime that lack a story could get a high rating.

I felt that Nopy’s other criteria, likable characters, was expanded on a bit by draggle in his post. He uses the anime Simoun as an example, saying that, while he doesn’t love every character, what’s important is that he’s never indifferent to any of them. I agree that a great cast of characters brings out emotions in the audience, whether for good or bad. “Likable” to me doesn’t necessarily mean a character we’d want to be our best friend – since this is fiction we’re talking about, having a character that makes us invested in what happens with them is where the appeal comes from, not always that they’d be a worthy person in the real world.

Acerailgun mentioned that it’s rare for people to give “middle ratings” for anime, such as 4s, 5s, and 6s. Usually it’s 7-10 if they liked/loved it or 1-3 if they disliked/hated it. I do give 6s on occasion, and 5s rarely, but most of my ratings are in the 7-8 range. I’m pretty good at avoiding anime I know I won’t like, nor am I fussy with anime to begin with, hence I’ve never given a below 5 rating. Does anyone else feel that people tend to rate either in an extremely positive or an extremely negative way, rarely in between?

Hoshiko briefly mentioned how one can experience an anime differently watching it weekly as opposed to marathon-style. I can certainly agree, as I often see an anime’s 10/10 qualities better via marathon than weekly, as the story becomes one cohesive whole rather than pieces of it. However, watching weekly could have the advantage of prolonging suspense when we have to wait another week to see what happens next, and it also makes the viewing experience last longer, giving us more time to get attached to the story and characters.

Leap250 brought up the unique criteria of whether an anime ends with “open-ness” or not. Though some may feel this means the series is open in terms of being able to have additional OVAs, movies, etc., my take on that is how much the anime leaves itself open to continually existing in the viewer’s mind. For example, it leaves just enough things open-ended in its finale so that we can still forever indulge in the fates of certain characters or certain plot points that were never fully explained, but we’re otherwise satisfied with how the series ended.

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To sum things up, I’d say this first Anime Blog Carnival was a decent success. It’s not something I’d want to do all the time, as I don’t like having obligations and deadlines in my blogging. But if it’s a topic I’m interested in and I don’t have many other posts planned, I would do it again some other time. Thanks again to du5k for organizing the project and inviting me to join, and to everyone who commented and participated in the discussion ^_^ I’ll be back to regular posting in a few days~

This past Saturday I spent the day at AnimeLA, a small anime convention about an hour’s commute from where I live. One of the panels involved discussing how technology has changed the US anime industry. That, together with the recent news of Bandai’s closing, got me thinking of exactly what the future holds for the US anime industry…

(Sorry this post is longer than my usual editorials. I had a lot to say on this topic)

At the panel I attended with my friend and fellow blogger Neo-Shonen Fujoshi, I was surprised that not many people passionately blamed Internet piracy alone as the main culprit behind the decline of the industry. They probably would have a few years ago, but nowadays I think people are seeing that, while piracy does still have its impact, the problem is not so much obtaining anime illegally as much as a shift in how the younger fans of today express their hobby.

With this, the discussion at the panel brought up the idea of our changing times that are de-emphasizing the need to own physical copies of things. As I touched upon in a past post, with iPads, iPhones, streaming movies, Kindles, and the like, our society is rapidly shifting away from the need to own physical copies of things in order to have access to them. There’s now so much encouragement to save shelf space and money and just stream or download movies, TV shows, and even books rather than buy individual copies of them. And this is bad news for the anime industry, whose very life’s blood is DVD/BD sales. While DVD/BD sales of anime are still doing fine in Japan (more on that later), American fans are different – with so much anime available on Crunchyroll and similar legal streaming sites, many of which never even see a home video release, the concept of “being a fan equals buying anime on DVD/BD” is deteriorating. Not only that, but what was also mentioned at the panel is that, because of these streaming sites, the Japanese companies can just hire someone on their side to make subtitles and that’s it, saving money by bypassing the American anime company altogether. They’ve even started doing so with some home video releases, like the BD box set of Kara no Kyoukai. Just like getting your own book self-published or making your own videos with Adobe Premiere, what was once needed to be done by paid professionals with professional equipment can now be done by just about anyone with a computer. And unfortunately that means a gain for some but heavy losses for many.

So, with this de-emphasis on owning physical copies of all the anime you watch, what are the young fans of today doing to show support for their hobby? As the panelists mentioned and what I myself was briefly a part of in my early years as a fan, the only way to really see anime and be involved in the fandom back in the day was to either buy the VHS/laser discs/DVDs yourself, borrow them from friends, or get together in groups such as anime clubs to view and trade them with others. All you really found in the dealers’ rooms at anime conventions back then were anime on VHS/DVD and perhaps some character goods like shirts, CDs, and artbooks. Nowadays however, thanks to what I previously mentioned about streaming anime and society’s de-emphasis on owning physical copies of media, anime fans today watch all the anime they want alone via the Internet, no longer needing to go out and buy DVDs or get together with other fans in order to obtain anime. So, when they do get together with fellow fans such as at conventions, they’ve come to socialize in a different way.

In addition to a cosplay boom, another shift I’ve noticed through attending anime conventions over the years is that the fandom is getting younger and younger. With the ease of Internet access, and therefore anime access, it’s no wonder. And of course, these young fans who are still in school aren’t going to be spending large sums of money on anime DVD/BD releases, especially in a society that’s encouraging them to stream. So they express their hobby through other means – cosplaying, often quite passionately and in organized groups, talking about anime with others via vast social networks like Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc., making their own anime fan art or web comics to sell at conventions and online…all of which is nice, but is giving little, if any, money back to the industry that creates what they love in the first place. And the dealers’ room at conventions can’t help but follow this shift in fan interests. Now what we mostly see there is cosplay accessions and grey market character goods, which again, unlike sales of DVDs/BDs, profit the industry next to nothing. Of course, there are still plenty of American anime fans (yours truly included) who are not part of this new mentality and like to own their own physical copies of the anime they love. But it’s hard to please everyone and my kind of fan is a dying breed.

So why is the Japanese anime industry doing fine while the American industry is in such peril? The way just about all anime series are released in Japan has been pretty consistent – 2-3 episodes per Blu-ray disc every few months, often with extra goodies such as mini-artbooks and posters, for about 5,000 to 9,000 yen each (roughly $65 to $120). As expensive as that is to American fans, Japan has been following that same model for years and it’s been working. Call it a difference in what it means to be a fan in Japan compared to the US, but Japanese otaku do spend that kind of money on anime releases. Why aren’t American otaku willing to spend the same? I think over the years American fans have gotten used to having everything in cheap box sets. In recent years, companies have been releasing full 26-episode anime series on DVD for less than $50. Even Blu-ray sets of 13-episode series can be bought for less than $80. Compared to Japan where you can’t even get 2-3 episodes for less than $50, Americans can get anime for very cheap. So why don’t they? Other than the legit reason that people, especially the young people that make up the majority of anime fans, don’t have the money in this bad economy, and of course pirating still being an issue, I believe the reason goes back to what I discussed in the previous paragraphs. I’ve even heard people speculate that the reason Bandai can’t go on in the industry is because they followed the Japanese model of releasing anime (3-4 episodes per discs released every few months) rather than go with cheap full box sets from the get go like other companies are doing.

In addition, the Japanese anime industry has another major side of it that America doesn’t have – character goods. Official products from practically every anime released each season, ranging from CDs, artbooks, figures, and plushies down to mousepads, phone straps, and towels, are available, often for a limited time, at stores like Animate and Gamers. You can get a good idea of what these products are like by scrolling through sites like AmiAmi that sell character goods to US consumers. While they’re not as profitable to the industry as DVD/BD sales, they certainly promote series and reel in profit.

So, what does this all lead up to as far as the future for the US anime industry? One of the panelists mentioned that the Japanese companies may just start bypassing the American companies altogether. Or more extremely, they might not even see a need to have an American industry anymore, as the majority of their profits are from Japanese otaku anyway. If that were to happen, the only way American fans could legally buy anime series on DVD/BD is to import them at the much higher Japanese prices, certainly without dubs and perhaps without subtitles unless the Japanese companies decide to have them. I personally can’t afford to spend the Japanese prices on anime releases, nor do I want them without good English subtitles, so I would be very upset if this extreme outcome came to pass. All I can do now is to keep supporting the industry as I have been: buying the US DVD/BD sets of the anime I especially like (as we all know it’s too hard nowadays to buy every series we watch) and importing figures and other official character goods whenever I can. If I become a millionaire and fluent in Japanese in the future, then I wouldn’t mind importing the Japanese DVDs/BDs at all. But that doesn’t look to be happening anytime soon, so unless some comparable alternative from Japan’s side comes about, I really hope Funimation, Sentai, Viz, NIS America, Nozomi, and Aniplex, with all their various business strategies, can hang in there.

*Further reading*:
Signs of the Times: An Industry in Transition – relentlessflame expands more on the changing industry and the differences between the Japanese and American anime markets

Endings and Beginnings – Neo-Shonen Fujoshi’s AnimeLA con report and her thoughts on the state of the anime industry

Revenge of the Special Edition – Mike Toole from ANN wrote a great article comparing the US anime industry of the past to the state it’s in today

Today’s post is part of a new project called an “Anime Blog Carnival,” started by du5k. What it consists of is myself and a handful of other bloggers writing a post about the same topic, linking each others’ blogs, and submitting our posts on the same day. The first topic of discussion for the carnival is “What makes a 10/10 anime?”…

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Before I get into exactly what kind of anime I feel deserves a 10/10 rating, I should first mention how I rate anime. In a post I wrote a while back, I discussed the two distinctions I feel exist in how we rate anime – the “head score” and the “heart score.” The head score is our rating for an anime based on how good we feel it is in terms of the usual things – story, characters, pacing, narrative flow, logicality, creativity, etc,. Our heart score however, is how good we feel it is in terms of our personal tastes and what we find entertaining, regardless of the other factors. It could be that it has tropes we like, character archetypes we adore, or a certain art style we can’t resist. For example, I find Angel Beats! vastly inferior to Cowboy Bebop in terms of story, setting, direction, character development, and other things. However, I personally enjoy watching Angel Beats! more than Cowboy Bebop. I’m more willing to spend money on Angel Beats! products and am basically more “into it” than Bebop. Why is this? Because Cowboy Bebop has a high head score for me while Angel Beats! has a high heart score. To simplify, the head score is our objective rating, the heart score is our subjective rating.

Some fans rate anime based solely on their head score, some base it solely on heart score, and some rate based on a balance of the two. So, with all that in mind, what anime would be deserving of a 10/10 rating from me? A very high head score for me practically guarantees a 10/10 rating. What this would encompass is an interesting story/plot that’s built up and resolved in a satisfying way, and a cast of characters that are entertaining and well written. I like to look at anime holistically, so every episode of the series doesn’t have to be 10/10 as long as the whole work averages that rating. If there’s any noticeable method of creativity and innovation when it comes to presenting these things, that would also increase the score. For slice-of-life/comedy anime that don’t rely on plot and character development, I’ll rate in terms of how good I feel the humor is and how fun the characters are. For all anime, if things like animation quality, character designs, music, and seiyuu performances are good, that’ll only increase the score to. But I can forgive these factors as long as the story and characters are of top quality.

While a very high head score for an anime equates a 10/10 rating from me, a very high heart score doesn’t unless I feel my head score for it is also of comparable quality. For example, I’m a big Pokemon fan and love watching the anime despite how flawed, predictable, and redundant it is. So, because of these things, I can’t give Pokemon a high rating despite my high heart score. But then there are series like Evangelion where I have a high head score and a high heart score for it. The head score alone would maybe be a 8/10 or 9/10, but my attachment to the characters and personal nostalgia (heart score) gave it that slight boost to a 10/10.

So to summarize, I feel there are two ways to rate anime – a head score and a heart score. For me, the head score is mostly what determines my number rating of an anime, though an additional high heart score can boost it. A 10/10 rated anime would, in my eyes, have a great story/plot, cast of characters, and narrative flow. Commendable music, art, and voice acting can also help give it extra points. But it’s my (mostly) objective view of plot, characters, and execution (characters and humor if it’s a plot-less slice of life/comedy) that determine the score.

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That concludes my post for the carnival topic. I didn’t make it as long as my usual editorial posts because the idea for the carnival is to read the other participants’ posts too, so it wouldn’t do to make mine a chore to read through. If you’re interested in helping us make this project a success, please read and comment on the other bloggers’ posts on the same topic:

Anime B&B by Marina
The Otaku’s Study by Sam
Anime Viking by Marow
Nopy’s Blog by Nopy
Draggle’s Anime Blog by draggle
Hachimitsu by Mira
Ace Railgun by AceRailgun
Leap250′s Blog by Leap250
Lemmas and Submodalities by SnippetTee
Ephemeral Dreams by Ephemeral Dreamer
World of Yamaguchi Hoshiko by hoshiko
One Minute of Dusk by du5k
Listless Ink by Yi

Not all of the above bloggers will have their carnival posts up today, so you may have to check back if there are certain ones you want to read. Don’t feel like you have to read and comment on everyone’s posts. I know it’s a lot, so feel free to read and comment on as many or as little as you’d like.

On January 15th, we’re all supposed to write a round-up post about the results of the carnival and our opinions about it. I plan to have a regular post in a few days, and then the round-up post on the 15th. So…I’ll see you all then. Thanks for reading/commenting ^_^

I’m sure we’ve all been in the situation where someone recommends an anime for us to watch that we’re not too thrilled with right away, yet they assure us that “it gets good later.” But how late should “later” be before it starts to feel like it’s not worth our time?…

I’ve heard opinions from both ends of the spectrum – fans who will drop any series right away if the first episode doesn’t immediately catch their interest, down to fans who will watch any series they start until the end to see if it was worth it. Besides someone’s overall patience with their entertainment, I think other factors are involved as well. Time, for example, could be one. Fans who have more free time on their hands could be more willing to put up with a mediocre beginning in an anime than fans who have less free time and don’t want to waste it on anime that’s not entertaining them from the get-go. Whether or not fans have prior expectations about the anime’s source material, original creator, or production studio are other things that could determine how much or how little of a chance they’re willing to give an anime. If they have faith in the original creator or are familiar with its original manga, they might have more patience with a series than someone who’s not familiar with these things. And of course, personality comes into play – if you’re patient and easy-going with your anime, you’ll probably be willing to wait longer for a series to “get good” than someone who’s less patient and more specific with their anime.

As I’ve discussed in a previous post, it takes a lot for me to drop an anime. Over ten years as a fan and I’ve dropped less than ten of the series I started watching. So does that mean I think an anime should have unlimited time to “get good”? I’ll admit I’m more patient than others when it comes to mediocre series, but I do have limits too.

To start things off, I try to be less judgmental at the beginning of a series since I know they need time for stories to unfold and characters to develop. So as long as the first episode of an anime isn’t a total bore or full of flaws, I’m willing to give it a chance passed that point. After that, the length of the series will also play a role. Usually the longer a series is, the more patience I try to have since I know more episodes equals more chances for the story to take a turn for the better or something else in the series to suddenly impress me. For example, if a 26-episode series is still boring me by episode 10, I’ll probably be more inclined to drop it than I would if a 50-episode series still hadn’t gotten good by episode 10. Once I make it passed the halfway point of a series, I become less inclined to give up on it since I figure “I’m over halfway done, might as well see how it ends.” As long as I don’t have any huge issues with a series and am able to derive a decent amount of enjoyment from it, I’ll stick with it till the end if my free time permits.

For long-running anime with hundreds of episodes, I know they take an extra amount of time to get good, though my experience has shown me that the payoff is worth it. I didn’t start to love Inuyasha until the episodes hit the 20s or 30s, and then it became my all time favorite series for a while. My favorite character in One Piece wasn’t even introduced until the episodes hit the 60s! Since the long-running shonen anime could take longer than two-cour anime to get “get good,” only certain kinds of fans are willing to get into them, which is understandable.

But, despite what I said above, sometimes a series does certain things that push by buttons as early as the first episode, causing me to not want to give it a chance regardless of length. For example, despite the fact that it’s a two-cour series, I found the first three episodes of the currently airing Persona 4 so boring and flawed, I just didn’t have the motivation to continue. My mind can be changed down the line though. If the latter half of Persona 4 gets an amazing amount of acclaim, I might be willing to give it another try. If a series I dropped early on suddenly becomes a huge success (as is the case with Lucky Star for me), I’ll most likely give it another chance. I tend to like the anime that become very popular, so for me personally, that would be a big factor in determining how much of a chance I’m willing to give a series. But for the average anime, if the bad outweighs the good for me in the first few episodes, I’ll be more inclined to drop it than if I was simply neutral to the first few episodes.

Another factor is exactly how “good” the “get good” part seems to be. If I were someone who hadn’t watched Madoka Magica yet and was ready to drop it by episode 2 because it wasn’t doing anything for me, I’m sure everyone who’s seen it would passionately tell me to give it a chance passed that point. So I’d most likely do so (helped by the fact that it’s only 12 episodes), whereas, I wouldn’t get such unanimous convincing for a lesser known series where maybe only a few people would tell me it “gets good later” while others would say it doesn’t (if it was a longer series, that would also be a deterrent). So an anime’s overall popularity is another thing that could make or break my decision to continue a series.

To conclude, there are a multitude of factors at play in determining how much time we’re each willing to give an anime to “get good” – how much free time we have, what we’ve heard about the series from others, how many total episodes it has, our background knowledge about the series, and how much patience we personally have when it comes to hobbies and entertainment. So now I’d like to know, how many episodes are you willing to give an anime to “get good”? Do any of the things I discussed above apply to you? Are there any other factors you think are important?

The argument that’s often made against anime classified as slice-of-life and iyashi-kei is that “nothing happens.” In other words, the shows are plot-less, which to some makes them boring and stupid. As someone who enjoys these kinds of anime as much as anime in any other genre, I’m going to examine why this is so…

From a Western perspective at least, fictional TV series are expected to “tell a story.” A story in the traditional sense has many parts – a beginning, middle, and end, in which there’s character development, plot exposition, rising action, various kinds of conflict, etc,. In other words, we expect things to happen throughout the series that will eventually change it from how it was at the beginning before giving us some kind of conclusion. We look forward to a story unfolding and payoff at the end. However, anime like K-ON, Lucky Star, Hidamari Sketch, and Ikoku Meiro have little to none of these elements. Conflict, the crux of just about every story, is virtually nil in these shows, and any summary of their “story” could be written in a single sentence. But are these kinds of anime as plot-less as they seem, and what is it that brings them a strong wave of hate?

I think one of the reasons slice-of-life and iyashi-kei anime get a lot of dislike from English-speaking fans is because, again, they don’t follow the traditional method of storytelling that relies on conflict and character/plot development. Anime is rarely episodic, and when it is, it’s often these genres of anime that are the examples. I’ve found that English-speaking fans with a dislike for slice-of-life often expect anime to always be “intelligent” entertainment, which comes from overarching, ongoing plots with little to no episodes that don’t contribute to this plot. They come to think that no plot equals no entertainment. But I think it’s a bit unfair to say that these kinds of anime are utterly plot-less. They may not have dynamic, overarching plots, but they have individual, episodic plots that may or may not lead to continuity in future episodes, such as introducing new characters. But one could even say that they do have overarching plots, such as “girls trying to get through high school” (Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star), “girls trying to form a music band” (K-ON), or “girls trying to become good Undines” (Aria). The episodic plots of each individual episode are often emphasized more than these vague overarching plots, but either way, these anime have some plot. You couldn’t have a show with no plot whatsoever or it would just be characters standing around and literally doing nothing. Whether these shows have character development or not is another debatable topic for another post.

Then again, the problem people have with these kinds of series is that, even if there is something happening in them, because there’s no major plot there’s no payoff in the end. But you can’t expect a show that’s mostly episodic to suddenly have some intense ending. That would be more unnatural then letting the show end with just a regular episode, or an episode that’s just slightly more sentimental or conclusive than the rest. K-ON, AzuDai, and Lucky Star all ended with the girls graduating high school, so you couldn’t say there was no closure to them. Most slice-of-life and iyashi-kei anime are light and comedic, so again it would be unnatural if they suddenly had heavily emotional endings. And lastly, my personal philosophy with anime is that how enjoyable the journey was is usually more important than whether the ending pays off, especially for a series with no ongoing plot.

I’ve often found that some slice-of-life and iyashi-kei anime are deemed more worthy than others. Usagi Drop has gotten great acclaim from fans who usually don’t like cute, slice-of-life anime. But in terms of the genre, is Usagi Drop really that different from, say, K-ON? (and is someone going to yell at me for trying to place these two on equal ground?) Both are episodic with fairly static plots (one is “girls trying to form a music band” and the other is “bachelor trying to become a good father to an adopted child”), both have some slight plot-advancing things happen (like introducing new characters) but nothing extreme enough to alter the status quo, both have arguably anticlimactic endings (talking about anime, not manga), and both are focused on being cute and slow-paced. Story aside, in terms of the genre the main differences between the two is that one is a comedy and one is a drama, and one has more traditional moe character designs and the other has unique character designs. I think the reason K-ON gets way more hate than Usagi Drop has nothing to do with being plot-less; K-ON is massively popular, and anything that popular will always bring about a ton of hate. But mostly, it has to do with how they’re marketed. K-ON is marketed as a seinen moe anime for male otaku (though it also has a much broader audience). Just the fact that it’s moe is enough to turn certain fans away, not because it’s “plot-less,” but because they don’t want to be associated with that “creepy otaku moe stuff.” Usagi Drop, being marketed as a josei series on Noitamina, doesn’t have this stigma. The fact that it’s more dramatic than comedic helps its universal appeal too.

Mushishi (again, anime not manga) is another example of an iyashi-kei anime that’s gotten near universal acclaim despite the fact that there’s no ongoing plot and it’s very episodic. When compared to another iyashi-kei series like, say, Ikoku Meiro, their main difference in terms of genre is that Mushishi’s themes are whimsical, supernatural, and dramatic, while Ikoku Meiro emphasizes cuteness and historical fun. Both are comprised of episodes with mostly individual stories (though I think Mushishi’s stories are more stand-alone than Ikoku Meiro’s), both are slow-paced, and each of their final episodes is more or less a regular episode. But like with K-ON and Usagi Drop, I think a lot of what drives Ikoku Meiro to get more hate than Mushishi is, again, English-speaking fans’ aversion to being associated with moe and the fact that entertainment through cuteness is an acquired taste.

To conclude, I don’t think that any anime series is completely without plot. For the slice-of-life and iyashi-kei series where plot is very de-emphasized, their appeal comes from outside the traditional means of conflict-centered storytelling. As I’m sure I’ve stated before, I like these kinds of shows because they’re relaxing, soothing, and just plain friendly. I feel like I’m just hanging out with silly friends or visiting a pleasant, uncomplicated world. Intelligent, intense, and suspenseful anime is great, but I also like going to the other end of spectrum where I can be entertained with something light that doesn’t require me to use my brain to follow a complex plot and I don’t have to deal with anything bad happening. I totally agree that this type of show is not for everyone. But I feel it’s appropriate to say you simply don’t prefer a genre rather than say an anime is bad simply because “nothing happens,” which isn’t even the goal of this type of anime to begin with. Rather than deride it, I think that relatively “plot-less” anime like K-ON and Ikoku Meiro show just how much anime expands its boundaries of unique entertainment methods.

Now that I’ve been maintaining an anime blog for over five years now, I’ve been wondering if I’ve ever developed some kind of goal for my work all this time. After all, if you’re like me and are very dedicated to your anime blog, your goal for it might not be something simple…

By “goal” I don’t mean a superficial goal such as reaching a certain number of posts or acquiring a certain number of hits – rather, I wonder if there’s a personal goal to blogging for all of us, whether we had the goal from the beginning or whether it was created over time. What kind of fulfillment do we get from blogging? Do we mostly do it for own sake or for others’ opinions? Which is more valuable to us, a good following of readers or simply getting our thoughts out there?

I didn’t develop much of a structure for MAY until sometime in 2008, when I really became familiar with the anime blogsphere and started watching anime almost strictly seasonally. I couldn’t update much in 2008 due to college, but around that time is when I became a more competent writer and found that my posts of choice are editorials about general anime topics. After I graduated college in mid-2009, MAY fell into the kind of structure you see today – mostly editorial posts about general anime topics, some favorites lists here and there, and reviews of seasonal anime when they start airing and after they finish. But unlike episodic blogs where there’s always something new to write about and no need to come up with original topics, editorial blogs like MAY have the challenge of coming up with unique topics all the time, which can be just as hard as actually writing about them.

So, now that it’s been a few years since I found this blogging structure I’m comfortable with, I ask myself, what is it that makes me want to keep on writing? As much as some of us like to think we’re only writing to get our thoughts out there and don’t care whether someone reads our posts or not, I know all bloggers feel at least a tinge of pleasure when someone comments on their posts, especially if they agree with your opinions. In my early years of blogging when I hardly got any comments, it was a great joy to get even one. Now that it’s been a few years since I’ve had a post with no comments, comments have become as much a part of my posts as the posts themselves. Replying to comments has also become a standard, as it gives back to the readers, letting them know that I in turn acknowledge what they said. It almost doesn’t seem like blogging anymore without that reader interaction. So I will definitely admit that one of my goals for blogging is for people to read what I write and acknowledge it through comments. After all, when you have a blog about anime, something the majority of English-speaking people know little to nothing about, your fellow fans online become the only people you can continually share it with. Your voice may get lost in crowded places like forums, but when you’re the voice behind your own blog, you get much more acknowledgement.

Of course, getting acknowledgement from others isn’t the only reason I blog. I would say I write for my own personal expression as much as I write for readers. There are three things I do to maintain my readership: 1) blog steadily, at least once or twice a week, 2) come up with original topics as much as I can, and 3) reply to comments. Other than that, I focus on writing in a way that gives me the most pleasure. Even if my posts end up being longer than usual or I want to write about something I don’t think my readers care about, I’ll do it if that’s what I feel like. Cyril Connolly once said that “It’s better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” Of course, the ideal situation is writing for yourself and having a public XD And honestly, I think that’s what my personal goal for anime blogging comes down to: finding a good balance of writing so that it gives me pleasure, while also writing in a way that keeps my readers coming back. I never disregard either side; I won’t write strictly for myself, never replying to comments, blogging inconsistently, and not blogging for extended periods of time with no explanation. But I also won’t blog solely to please readers, only talking about anime in a way I think people will like or trying to be the first to review something. Ultimately, the goal I’ve developed in five years of writing on MAY is to write so that I enjoy it, but also establishing a structure so that my readers enjoy it too, which then gives back more enjoyment to me even if I have to work a little harder to maintain those readers. It’s a give and take relationship, and that’s what I strive for in blogging ^_^

And lastly, for my fellow bloggers reading this, I’d like to know what goal you have that keeps you blogging. Self expression? Interaction with readers? Simply polishing your writing skills? Or do you not even have a goal in mind at all?

On the very extreme end of anime fandom lies the otaku who develop romantic feelings for certain anime characters, to the point of actually desiring a 2-D relationship over a real, 3-D one. This topic of major moe, mai waifus, and dakimakuras is nothing new to otaku culture, but it’s certainly among the most controversial. Bitmap over on Remember XVI recently wrote a post about the very subject, which sparked some thoughts for me…

From the otaku who actually put together a wedding for himself and a girl from the dating sim Love Plus, to the otaku who carries a dakimakura of a Da Capo girl around with him everywhere as if it were real, otaku who feel that they are sincerely in love with anime characters have found their way into the news. Of course, the reaction from the average person, in both Japan and Western countries, is repulsion. For English-speaking fans especially, it may be even harder to put up with such a thing when they know that the average Westerner’s view of anime is already distorted as it is. We want society to see the intelligence and art in anime, so it’s people like these otaku who have such creepy relationships with their hobby that give anime a bad name. Adding to the fact is that, despite what society thinks, anime companies seem to encourage this kind of relationship by creating products such as dakimakuras, oppai mousepads, and bikini-clad figures that precisely cater to these kinds of desires, which further frustrates fans who want anime to only be intelligent, creative entertainment.

So how does one develop such a desire for a fictional character in the first place? In his post, Bitmap brings up the concept of “unattainability” that anime characters have. He compares it to the courtly love of the Middle Ages, where the knight would have to win the love of a high society lady who is otherwise beyond his reach, which was actually seen as a virtue. Going back to 2-D love, perhaps having a lover who’s unattainable brings an air of mystery, whimsical-ness, sublimity, novelty, or any number of desirable adjectives to the relationship. Or perhaps it’s simpler than that. Having a 2-D girlfriend means no arguing, no need to put on airs, no need for jealously or hard feelings – in short, pure unconditional love. But then there’s the tragic aspect to it. Often these otaku had had a relationship with a real woman before that ended in heartbreak for them. They’ve simply given up on their chances of having a real girlfriend/wife and found that they’re satisfied with a 2-D one instead. In most cases, it seems like low self-esteem and lack of confidence in themselves is what brings them to 2-D love rather than choosing it over 3-D out of the blue. Though I do wonder what would happen if two or more otaku who love the same anime character were to meet. Would they fight over who loves her more? Or would they appreciate each other for liking the same girl? (it’s not like she can choose between them or get jealous).

I’m not sure how I personally feel about the whole thing. I’m not vehemently against it, but I also can’t bring myself to not find it creepy, or to not think that such otaku have some kind of mental/emotional issues. I do sympathize with the fact that this type of otaku is responsible for further distorting people’s view of anime, but at the same time, it’s a very real part of the fandom that shouldn’t be hidden. Despite the many anime characters I love dearly, I’ve never had any romantic interest in any of them beyond silly little fangirl crushes in high school. Most of my favorite characters are female, but for the male ones, any romantic feelings I had weren’t anything more than thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice to meet a guy like [insert name of male character].” For characters I really love, my desires don’t go beyond just thinking about them a lot, wanting to see them in certain situations in the anime (nothing sexual), and wanting to have certain products with their likeness such as figures, posters, and plushies. So I don’t have any desire for products specifically made to elicit sexual feelings, such as dakimakuras and ecchi figures. Keeping the character in my mind, having a collection of G-rated products for him/her, and humbly carrying some around with me all the time in the form of phone straps, keychains, etc., is enough for me. I don’t need to imagine myself interacting with the character; I’m content to just think of them within the world of their respective series.

To conclude, all kinds of bizarre love has existed for centuries, 2-D love being just one modern example. Our Internet age of today has simply made them more explicit and out in the open. Looking on the positive side, if these otaku can get the same fulfillment from their dakimakuras and dating sims games that they would from having a real relationship, and they aren’t hurting anyone for it, then why not let them indulge in this little fantasy? Maybe relationships that are still loving but don’t bring more children into this already overcrowded world of limited resources, is a good thing? Better to let out their sexual desires on inanimate objects than raping real women/girls. But on the flip side, maybe something should be done to build the confidence of these otaku so they can find the real woman they seek and not use the 2-D world as a total substitute. Not to completely take anime and games away from them, but to help them find a healthy balance of both. I suppose only time will tell if 2-D love will go any farther than this, disappear into obscurity, or just be added to the growing list of strange love that the human heart can come up with.