Otaku Crave

Hey guys, ParaParaJMo/GrapplerJMo here to make a blog about the bad things youtube and the corporations are doing to its innocent users, especially the anime (and gaming) review base. One of the reasons why I bring this up is because Douglas, myself, Hard’s Anime Review, and NarutoIsMyBrother have all been victim of being accused of copyright infringment (when we disclaim and implement fair use and its legal limitations), and as a result, getting our old youtube accounts deleted. And now G4 is suing TimeWarp1 over his rants about them.

Why are they doing this when a lot of videos and comments I’ve seen have been nothing but hateful in every angle imaginable, and by immature assholes who claim to be thirty or older on their profiles. Why aren’t they the ones that get banned or sued!? What about the people how indecently put on strip shows? Blog in their underwear? Or make hate speech videos and get away with it? And why do the fair opinions of gamers and anime fans are the ones who get persecuted? Why does the IrateGamer get away with his bullshit of claiming copyright infringement of rants on him when these videos contain NO copyrighted material what-so-ever!? Is there no more freedom of speech for the innocent? Do we get to let go of Charles Manson now? How is this no different between the rights of criminals and the privacy of vitcims? Will outside internet society fall prey to how youtube conducts their website?

I don’t know the whole story, but after watching his rants again, I wonder why in God’s name are doing such a thing!? He’s not the only one to have made videos saying their line up is crap and to use pictures of their shows!!! Why him!? What’s with this wish hunt going on!? Unfortunately, I have no means of contacting him because he has not been on youtube for two months now, and I hope the courts have not banned him from doing so. If anybody has any means of reaching him, tell him to contact the electronic frontier foundation (http://www.eff.org/) to help reassure his rights to free speech on the internet.

Has G4 fallen so far off the map that they need to sue money out of people who express that they feel out of touch with what they now show doesn’t represent their fan base? I do want to say some points about G4 (don’t worry, nothing threatning), but I fear even the slightest insult to them will get me sued, and this site taken down. Is this how far our freedom of speech is being taken away from our corporations?

And now I sort of want to go on a brief tangent to further my point. With G4 pulling off this Getstapo fiasco, and with 20th Century Fox taking down Dragon Ball trailers, how long will it take for 20th Century Fox to sue people over saying the Dragon Ball movie is going to suck, huh?

Well, granted I am still a youtube user and hopefully always will. I know people rant about people who claim to leave youtube, but I’m not one of them. If you choose to leave that site, then that’s your choice. Ranting about people who choose to leave makes you no different from the corporations. If it weren’t for youtube, I wouldn’t have found my way to OtakuCrave, nor would I be writing this blog for that matter. But I chose youtube as a base for my reviews because all I saw on other anime sites were people talking about Naruto, Bleach, and Inuyasha, and not other people talking about anime I personally care about such as Hajime no Ippo, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and Initial D, and I thought doing my show would do the trick, and when I started my show under my old account of ParaParaJMo, the only other reviewer was Hard, and he was doing ok himself. I figure with the lack of other reviewers, I thought I would be able to help the anime fan base my own way using youtube as would my fellow colleagues.  Eventually, I got 500 subscribers, and the ungrateful corporations all of a sudden took away all of that in an instant, and Douglas and Hard soon followed. And not once did either of us make a penny off our videos.

Will there be a time when I will leave youtube? Or will Douglas? Or will Hard? Or will AnimeTalk? Or GrumpyJiisan? Well, if that even happens, it’s because youtube left us, not because we left youtube.

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First off, in case you don’t know me, this is GrapplerJMo of the GrapplerJMo Anime Review Show (which includes J-Dramas, movies, games, and coming soon, manga). Anyway, I would like to say thank you to Douglas and Otakucrave for allowing me to have this column/blog to express myself to my fellow distinguished colleagues, as well as anime fans/otakus or whatever you want to call them.

For my first post, I want to get into a controversial subject of fansubs/scanlations, which was a Magus Panel I participated in along with Douglas, Magus himself, and some others a few weeks ago. The reason why I make this blog is because of a recent letter sent to Wizard’s Anime Insider in which a person sent a letter stating that anime that is non-licensed are legal to fansub, and AI’s reply was that fansubs under ALL circumstances are still illegal. Even though I have always conflicted whether or not to take their live action casting calls seriously and thought their top 50 anime was crap, I couldn’t help but agree with their reply. I myself am aware that fansubs and scanlations are illegal regardless of licensing issues, but this is part of my point.

Yes, usual fansubber ethic is to only distribute non-licensed anime for THE PURPOSE OF GETTING IT LICENSED, and once the deed is done, that fansub copy no longer needs to circulate (but thanks to the magic of the internet, that is not always the case). I would also like to acknowledge that I do buy my anime if I like it. I have bought all of Hajime no Ippo (which was retitled Fighting Spirit), Sailor Moon, Golion, Wedding Peach, Voltron, Gundam Wing, Akira, and many others. I do have a pretty big anime collection I am proud of, but I believe my collection would be one hundred times bigger if some of the animes I did were OFFICIALLY LICENSED. So my main problem is that yes, fansubs is hurting the industry but my main point (finally) is that I feel that in my case, I can’t support the anime industry if it’s not supporting me, and in semi-reply to that letter in anime insider, I just sent this e-mail to address my personal feelings on the issue.

Hopefully, this will be in an upcoming issue of Anime Insider.

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To whom it may concern,

I read the last issue’s letter on the legality of fansubs (and I would like to include scanlations in this letter). However, the purpose of this mail is to ask if there are alternative solutions around getting non-licensed anime and manga legally in English that have yet or may NEVER reach outside of Japan. Even though I admit fansubs and scanlations are against the law, as far as I know, I have no other resources to watching anime or reading manga that have yet to come to the US, or many never come at all, so people like me result to fansubs and scanlations for my exposure. So this creates a huge moral dillema.

When and how do I get to watch Macross 7, Devilman, Sailor Stars, Akazukin
Cha Cha, Angel’s Egg, Nodame Cantabile, Wangan Midnight, Transformers Victory, Kinnikuman (the first series), Gundam X, Turn A Gundam, and an accurate dub or subtitled copy of Windaria without “stealing” so I can actually pay for an English translation by ADV, VIZ, FUNimation or someone? For manga, when and how do I legitimately purchase an English copy of the 80+ volume manga of Hajime no Ippo/Fighting Spirit, Kochikome, Azumi, Ichi the Killer, Bari Bari Densetsu, Wangan Midnight, Ganbare Genki, Ring ni Kakero, or the classic Ashita no Joe, or the first two story arcs of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure just walking distance from my Barnes and Noble?

I feel that the licensing of these titles are long over due, and it’s a high possibility they may never be available to Americans as I said before. What’s your solution for these scenarios to prevent people from resulting to piracy? What’s one letter from me pleading a license company going to do? Has petition online ever solved or jump started anything for the anime industry? To sum it up, how do you support the industry when you feel they aren’t supporting you by not supplying you the titles you truly wish to purchase, and mostly release titles you don’t care about or wish to purchase?

I felt if they somehow made these title readily available in English to begin with on an official level, then maybe it would probably limit fansubs and scanlations more effientley. I’ll also admit it doesn’t guarantee successful sales like the uncut releases of Yu-Gi-Oh which bombed despite the high demand, nor does it make them the money that piracy is robbing  from them. I am a proud anime fan, and I do my best to contribute to the creators, but I feel that at the same time, the creators need to contribute to their international audience(s) who enjoy their work rather than the Japanese.

I feel Jyoji Morikawa has a right to know that there are people outside of Asia who enjoy Hajime no Ippo, I feel that Shoji Kawamori knows he has supporters for the other Macross titles, and the great Yoshiyuki Tomino also knows there are those who consider Turn A Gundam the best, and that they are willing to dish out their wallets and support them. And because some of their tremendous masterpieces aren’t officially available yet, or may never be licensed, they cannot receive the support they deserve and the fanbase that is already established, and resorts to only getting pirated copies. But I do understand though the fanbase is very dedicated, they are still very small and that their support alone may not do the trick, nor does it justify getting it licensed unfortunately (and I don’t want to get into an argument of justifying piracy regardless of licensing status). It is situations like these where I wish anime was as big as the Hollywood and video game industries so we wouldn’t have to face these parodoxes.

Thank you for taking the time for reading my concerns and for sharing them with your loyal readers.

Sincerely yours,
An angry, confused, and disgruntled anime and manga fan who feels he can’t support an industry if they’re not supporting him

Popularity: 49% [?]

Movie star and producer Leonardo DiCaprio (Titanic, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, The Aviator) told MTV’s Splash Page that his Appian Way production company is waiting for the final script draft for the live-action film version of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira manga. He added, “I’m a big fan of Japanese anime — that and another project called Ninja Scroll we’re trying to get developed and made into a movie, and I know there a lot of loyal fans out there of the project and die-hard fans, so we’re going to try to do the best job we possibly can and we’re not going to make the movie until the script is in the right shape.” He also emphasized that he is producing in these two projects, and that he does “not really” have any interest in acting in them.

The Variety entertainment news source reported in February that Warner Brothers and Appian Way had re-licensed the rights to remake Akira from the manga publisher Kodansha. The two companies originally planned to make two films, each of which would cover three volumes of the renowned science-fiction manga about a governmental genetic project and a teenager’s attempt to save a fellow biker gang member. Otomo himself directed a popular 1988 anime film based on his own manga. Variety also reported last month that Warner Brothers and Appian Way had licensed the rights to adapt Yoshiaki Kawajiri’s Ninja Scroll action anime film from the Madhouse anime studio.

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It was a day of over-spend and over-exposure to worrying Bleach and Naruto cosplays. It was also a day of watching other people spending even more than me, and going starry-eyed over great cosplayers, some of whom are pictured below.

If you’re one of those guys, thank you for posing, and drop me an email if you’d like a better-quality photo of yourself!

Oh, and… the guy from the Yaoi stand, waving a yaoi paddle… What’s that about boys kissing other boys, and prettier than your boyfriend?

Left: If Kero-chan is this big, is Sakura friends with King Kong?

Right: They’re going to replace those bendy buses with a brand new design. [More]

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On October 4, fans of the Onegai Teacher and Onegai Twins anime series presented 120,000 yen (about US$1,200) to the Lake Kizaki Springs Tourism Association to maintain the streetlights near the lake that inspired the background locales in these two anime. Every year, the city of ?machi in western Japan lights up the lake shore from July to September with these streetlights. However, the tourism association had planned to stop the tradition this year due to mounting costs. Fans heard about the planned cancellation and raised money in September to continue the tradition.

Fans began visiting the lake after the two anime ran in Japan, and have already joined the local cleanup campaigns around the lake. Since both anime prominently featured the local train stops, the ?ito train line has been issuing souvenir tickets with anime background art from this past September until next August. Bandai Entertainment released both anime series in North America.

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The film distributor Summit Entertainment and the Hong Kong animation studio IMAGI have announced that their computer-animated film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga will open on over 3,000 North American screen on October 23, 2009. The story centers on a robot abandoned by its inventor and raised by a kind professor to protect the world. David Bowers (Flushed Away) is directing off a screenplay written by Timothy Harris (Trading Places, Kindergarten Cop). The cast features Freddie Highmore in the title role, Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Bill Nighy, Eugene Levy, and Kristen Bell.

The two production companies will later announce a marketing “commitment from a major fast food restaurant partner as well as alliances in the areas of toys, games, books and others.” Dark Horse reissued its English version of the original manga this month, and Right Stuf have released the classic 1963-1966 anime adaptation in two box sets. Manga Entertainment and Sony shipped DVDs for the 1980 and the 2003 anime remakes, respectively. Next February, Viz Media will publish Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto manga that is set in Tezuka’s Astro Boy world.

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The North American distributor FUNimation Entertainment has announced the acquisition of the Kaze no Stigma television series from the Gonzo anime studio. The anime adapts Takahiro Yamato and Hanamaru Nanto’s supernatural action light novel series, which has 12 volumes so far. The story centers on Kazuma Kannagi, a man who was banished his family of fire magic users by his own father after he was defeated by his cousin Ayano. Four years later, Kazuma is now 22 and has become a wind magic user after a contract with the spirit of wind. Kazuma returns to his former home and faces Ayano again.

The anime version features director Jun’ichi Sakata (Card Captor Sakura, DNA²) and series script supervisor Mayori Sekijima (Angel Sanctuary, MoonPhase). Funimation will launch the 24-episode series on DVD in the summer of 2009.

Popularity: 6% [?]