https://www.vice.com/en/article/93k9vd/studio-ghibli-park-groping-japan
Hayao Miyazaki is regarded in the industry as a grumpy curmudgeon who hates otaku. He's correct.
he also hates Indiana jones and LotR because of colonialism and also American jingoism
there was a year where he didn't show up to the oscar because he said the war on terror is illegal
He also threatened to kill Harvey Weinstein is any cuts were made to the western theatrical release of Princess Mononoke. Literally mailed the man a sword with a note that just said "no cuts".
Hayao Miyazaki began his career at Studio Toei, and quickly found himself involved in the union struggles occurring at the time, efforts which eventually saw he, Isao Takahata, and others virtually forced out of the studio. Rising to prominence in this milieu, Miyazaki spent his early life as a self-proclaimed Marxist, and the artistic priorities set by those politics survive even into his present work. In the 80s he declared that he wanted to, “always be aware of the dangers of being too wishy-washy, to be aware of the relationships between media creators and consumers, capital and labor.” Yet, within a decade, this belief in Marxism totally crumbled. With the fall of the USSR and the writing of Nausicaa, Miyazaki’s faith in historical materialism—which centers class struggle and the relations of economic production in its analysis—collapsed, and he declared that the kind of thinking where, “if things like the distribution of wealth and the means of production were properly taken care of, everything would get better”, was something he could no longer accept. Indeed, in 1994 he claimed that, “Leaving decisions up to the collective wisdom of the masses just results in collective foolishness”, as well as saying, outright, that “Marxism was a mistake,” and from here, the ecological tones already present in his work became even more central.
continues at https://floatingintobliss.wordpress.com/2019/12/31/miyazakis-marxism-the-politics-of-animes-legendary-director/
The fall of the USSR really caused a lot of people to turn towards Liberalism.
Even if he's a lib now, I still cannot help but have respect for him.
I think he is more of a real proper anarchist. Maybe some Japanese nationalism in there. Not like the people we see on Twitter, instead with actually well thought out ideas.
Indiana Jones is so shit. I wrote a spec script once where he ends up in Cuba just after the revolution trying to fix something horrible that Columbus did and it was at least half an excuse to have a Marxist anthropologist dress him down and yell at him for being an imperialist shithead.
And yes, I'm mad bc I used to love the movies until I was educated enough and had the perspective to critically analyze what was happening. He's still cool for beating up Nazis.
I'm not great at critical analysis, but my takeaway from those movies was 'wait, don't those archaeological finds belong to the countries they're from?'
I'm surprised Miyazaki would even be okay with a theme park of Ghibli.
If Alan Moore was a genuinely decent guy who, as far as I know, never did anything icky and had genuinely beautiful beliefs about what is possible in the world then yeah, I guess. Hayao Miyazaki is a Titan in the "young women are smart, capable, and can and should be the heroes of their own story" field. Like almost every Ghibli movie under his direction is an exceptional work of art that directly confronts sexism, miliarism, and hopelessness with both seriousness and whimsy in a way that hardly anything else in this miserable world approaches. He didn't do it alone, but he brought together an immense amount of talented people and helped them produce something beautiful.
What did Alan Moore do? The only controversies I know about him are his constant usage of rape in his stories and Lost Girls existing.
Japan seriously needs a reckoning with it's pedophile otaku culture. It's getting past uncomfortable into dangerous territory now.
:illuminati: the real reason the Japanese birth rate is so low falls somewhere between so many dudes only wanting to fuck 2d girls and women realizing the only way to protect their kids from the pedotakus is to not have kids at all.
I'm just shitposting, but yeah atomized culture turns people into consumption monsters.
I'm just shitposting, but "Otaku" is basically like "Geek" or "Nerd," and it basically just means someone who is absorbed with a hobby or interest to their social detriment. There are otaku for everything from computers to trains to history, or anything else.
From a 2013 research panel survey of about 0.1% of the national population, about 42% of Japanese identify as otaku, with 62% of teens identifying as such.
Although I was joking, having half of your population prioritizing hobbies over having any social life may be detrimental.
anyone remember the weird slave BDSM Swords and Sorcery series Gor?
I feel like an unexpectedly high percentage of our :volcel-vanguard: site is into kink, so surely someone here does.
People who were in to rippling muscly naked barbarians doing muscly barbarian stuff incorporating that in to their bdsm hobby is very not weird and predictable. Idk what people's experience with the bdsm and fetish community is but having hung out on the edges of it for decades most fetishists are very boring and the only reason fetish culture seems interesting and lurid to outsiders is American neo-puritanism. There just isn't that much depth or complexity to finding sexual enjoyment in spanking. Once you get over the "ooh these people are weird sex deviants!" Thing the most genuinely interesting parts of fetish culture are mostly arts and crafts stuff like shibari or the actual process of making bondage gear. If you've seen one St. Andrew's cross you've seen them all and there isn't much to say about them unless you start getting in to carpentry. It's like any other hobby except Americans have an extremely, virulently, violently unhealthy relationship with sex.
Being in to kink is the difference between having a hobbie and investing time and skill in getting good at your hobby.
That said, yeah, Gor exists as a lifestyle thing out in the wide world of bdsm hobbiests. It's older and has an older audience and was never very widespread to begin with.
better than having 100% of office workers being at work all day instead of doing anything else.
I thought being an otaku for critical theory was a fun concept for a username, but I now deeply regret all the life choices that led to that.
Back when there was social life hobbies were how you had social life. Everyone i know that i didn't meet in college or at work i know from weird niche hobbies like larp or gaming. Meeting people through hobbies and shared interests is, or was, the normal way that you built a social life.
It's not and the fixation on Otakus is just acceptable racism. Japans birth rate is falling bc capitalism. You're expected to work all the time and devote a lot of time to work related activities outside working hours. Women are usually punted out of their careers as soon as they get pregnant, losing the limited autonomy workers have and being forced in to the home, while losing a significant amount of income. Cost of living and the cost of having children are both prohibitively high, and the stress of day to day life is such that it's hard to meet people and develop relationships and many people just don't have the emotional energy and strength to develop relationships.
It's the same reason birth rates are falling in the US and fewer and fewer people are in relationships or even having sex, albeit with different culturally rooted specifics. Capitalism is blind to and unable to cope with how it's own inhuman demands on the workers annihilate the very social reproduction it needs to perpetuate itself.
The thought terminating cliche "let people enjoy things" rings especially hollow when Japan's Otaku culture comes to mind.
They probably are only slightly more inclined to view young children as more adult than we are. The main issue is that the only subsection of the population willing to consistently pay for anime are the population who like kids. So it is a feedback loop. The more they cater to that marginalized group the less normal people are willing to pay.
studio Ghibli theme park
If the "theme park" is anything more than a bunch of cabins in the woods then you fucked up. Cabins along a windswept coastline would also be acceptable.
They need to make more anime about hot & horny MILFs to combat this shit. I'm only 1/4 joking btw. This shit was brought about with media normalization of creepy pedo shit, so there needs to be a counter-normalization of fine-ass milfs.
:volcel-judge: I do not watch anime by the way. :monke-ruserious:
Problem is that the hot and horny MILFs will target minors 90% of the time.
Time to make office and workplace comedies where the milf boss seduces the grown man to work 80 hours a week and drink with her after work
any consentual romance between 2 clearly defined adults would be a breath of fresh air for the industry
This is why Spy x Family rocks. Just two adults pretending to be married and pretending to love each other while actually slowly falling in love with each other.
I really need to start in on this one it sounds like what I've been looking for.
It's just wonderful. The main character is a child and she isn't sexualised in the slightest. The animation is very pretty. It takes place in "Berlint" in what is clearly East Germany during the Cold War, life there is portrayed as exceeding normal, and the villains are a right wing nationalist party that wants war with the West. And the vibe is just infectious.
Saw this post, then saw a post on Reddit about an anime where the main character is the only person in the world who prefers MILFs. Unfortunately, it also has this weird slavery thing going on, so you don't got to give it to em.
it also has this weird slavery thing going on, so you don’t got to give it to em.
Oh but I really do
:cure-for-fascism:
Currently middle aged and extremely frustrated that there's very little anime explicitly for adults. I just want characters in their thirties doing stuff ffs. Like half the genres in anime and manga, especially some of the romance and slice of life stuff, just doesn't exist in western shows and movies. I love stories where people just kind of live their lives and there's no plot and you just get to go along with them for a little while and that's almost unheard of in western movies, shows, or literature. Like there are legit maybe half a dozen genuine low stakes slice of life sci fi books in English and three of them are by the same author.
The closest you can get, for the most part, are sitcoms and rom coms, both of which tend to be absolutely gross in how they depict relationships and sexuality. Like seriously just give me one Hayao Miyazaki movie about divorcees in their 40s meeting and falling in love and I'll shut up.
I actually feel similarly (though not slice of life stuff; I'm really not into those); it's getting kind of annoying that most characters are teenagers. I'm not saying I need to see a character pay his taxes or go to his office job, but adults don't think or act like teenagers, and you can have characters who are married with kids (I don't think I know of any anime with a protagonist who's an adult, married and has kids). The story dynamic is just different.
We need to shut Japan down until we figure out what's going on over there.
US enforced fascism mostly. In a general sense Japan probably tends towards something like nationalist socialism. We paid the yakuza to suppress any hint of leftism for decades. So that just leaves the nationalism part.
Nope. Some don't call themselves that due to negative connotation.
Like I play a few videos, but no way I'm calling myself a gamer.
I watched a few myself. I confess. But then again i also have a lot of questionable hobies. I read several of piers anthony books in my day for example. So...
That being said even the wholesome stuff like dragon ball is increadibly horny at times.
I dont know abou the 3 you mentioned couldnt watch any of em. But yhea there are good ones i guess.
It's not a genre. It's like calling "books" or "paintings" a genre. It's animation, a medium for story telling. The only thing Record of the Overfiend and Princess Monoke have in common is that they're both animated.
even the wholesome stuff like dragon ball is increadibly horny at times.
Dragon ball isn't even close to the "wholesome" end of the spectrum, it's honestly much much closer to the other end.
There is plenty of anime which doesn't make sexual assault and harassment into jokes like dragon ball does
This is only acceptable if you’re feeling up
TotoroCalcifer :blob-on-fire: :volcel-kamala:
Can we shoot dudes like this on sight, please? :visible-disgust:
this isn't alienation it's patriarchy
also why are anime fans like this
It's a spiraling issue of kiddie creeping in the entertainment and audiences wanting more and more concentrated and widespread kiddie creeping in their ongoing entertainment. :kombucha-disgust:
what if the base and the superstructure are just both terrible
Seriously though, how is this not against the park rules? Just kick these losers out, you already got their ticket money
What makes you think it isn't against park rules or that these losers wouldn't be kicked out if staff caught them?
Very luke warm take - hating on Anime as a medium and dismissing it entirely as :libertarian-approaching: is just plain racism and chauvinism. There's just as much disgusting, weird shit in western media, while there is a great deal of genuinely good, progressive, worthwhile storytelling in Anime and manga.making sweeping accusations against an entire culturally rooted medium of expression because of the stuff that is heavily marketed for profit driven reasons is plain unimaginitive chauvinism and you should re-examine your beliefs. Imagine dismissing all western novels bc there's so much fascistic science fiction and spy thrillers, or dismissing western cinema bc of Michael Bay and Zach Snyder movies.
Nah, the product of a hyper capitalized industry can be generally dismissed as without Merritt.
Even the karl Marx anime had underpaid exploited workers working themselves to death so line go up. The anime industry somehow treats it people worse than hollywood.
