Instagram photos I took this week: me and the Cosplay USA magazine I edited, Nobell Gundam, Pink Bearguy gundam, and homemade Japanese curry.
- According to the latest numbers, 59% of journalism majors are women.
- Here’s a take on “fangirling” I hadn’t considered—that expressing fandom can be as liberating or legitimizing as art.
- Daryl Surat’s Twitter discussion with an anime industry insider shows a disconnect between how Americans and Japanese view anime fandom.
- A Kotaku reviewer just panned Watamote as “the most mean spirited anime I have ever watched.”
- Inspirational quotes from anime, as told by r/anime. Be warned: some are from hentai and you’d have to be an interesting person to find them inspiration.
- Charles Dunbar’s Fandom ID project has started up again. Here’s Jed Blue’s essay on being born a third-generation geek.
- On Tumblr, I wrote about why I don’t believe “Real Anime Journalists” are a thing. Follow my Tumblr if you’d like more short thoughts and ramblings.
2 Comments.
Surat makes a terrific point: the things that made anime so fascinating to non-Japanese audiences are not the things that are being recognized as special by its own custodians. I’m reminded of the way people lament how some of the best movies of any country have to be recognized by audiences elsewhere before they’re appreciated at home.
Cute Japan has a pretty low standing in Western eyes — it’s seen as infantile and ignobling. I’m constantly surprised at how little its own promoters realize this. It’s as if the best way to promote American literary culture abroad was not to export Mark Twain or Joyce Carol Oates, but rather Stephanie Meyer.
You have a point. However I will point out that your making an personal judgment when you say. That Mark Twain has more artistic value than Stephanie Meyer. A view Mark Twain may not endorse.
Do we really need cultural gate keepers telling us what is has artistic merit and what doesn’t?
I prefer when we get to watch what we want regardless of if some cultural curator tells us it has merit or not.