Gender Based Marketing - Time for a Paradigm Shift? Part 1

Anyone even the tiniest bit immersed in internet pop culture has no doubt heard of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (henceforth MLP) by now. For the uninitiated,  MLP is a cartoon show based on Hasbro's long running My Little Pony franchise, primarily targeted at girls ages 3 and up. And it's doing very well in the ratings, both with young girls, and adults, ages 18 to 34, primarily men.

Not to put too fine a  point on it, but the MLP fanbase is shitastically huge. The primary non official fansite, Equestria Daily, has garnered a whopping 38 million hits in it's short eight months of existence. Furthermore, it gains new hits at the rate of about 3 per second.

Even more striking than the size of the fandom however, is it's self sustaining, self renewing nature. After the end of season 1 of MLP, the fanbase didn't shrivel like many expected it to, in fact, it expended. In lieu of official content, fans took to simply creating their own. A wealth of fics, vids, art and even games began pouring in. This in turn created a seeming perpetual machine of fandom; the larger it got, the more more people it attracted into it, in turn creating an even greater amount of fan content.

In a sense, MLP is the Western equivalent to Touhou. The difference however, is that MLP holds several key advantages over its Japanese counterpart, outlined below:

• Capacity for Monetization
• The Touhou franchise is the intellectual property of the one man development team, Team Shanghai Alice. In contrast, MLP is owned by Hasbro, the toy making juggernaut which following the huge success of the Transformers film, is now entering into the entertainment industry with its television channel, The Hub. As a corporation worth billions of dollars, Hasbro has far greater capacity for marketing, merchandising and distributing as compared to a single person.
• MLP is not Absurdly Japanese
• The other key advantage MLP has over Touhou is that it doesn't have an identity irrevocably tied to its nation of origin. Touhou is ridiculously Japanese, thus meaning its appeal its primarily centered in Japan, with only limited appeal outside the admittedly wealthy island nation. MLP by contrast, can be very easily exported, which Hasbro has already done, having brought MLP to key foreign markets such as Singapore, France and others. 

Now consider this; imagine a property with the self sustaining nature of Touhou, but on an even grander scale, effectively marketing towards and monetizing its ever growing fanbase. Surely Hasbro must be swimming in pools of money made from its MLP franchise by now?

But they aren't.

The sudden and meteoric rise in popularity of MLP amongst adult fans was never planned for, and caught Hasbro completely flat footed. Almost a year after MLP debuted, Hasbro has only made very superficial moves towards monetizing this new found fanbase, primarily in the form of licensed t-shirts.

Most interesting however, is that toy sales, Hasbro's bread and butter, has also been fairly lukewarm amongst the adult fanbase.

The reason for this is that the brand marketing for MLP is intrinsically tied to gender. Unfortunately, marketing for girls' toys has been historically been condescending and lackluster. An overabundance of pink is used, cartoon accuracy is sacrificed for supposedly more appealing colours, and gimmicks are often overly simplistic.

In turn, this has severely limited Hasbro's ability to market towards its adult fanbase. Adults, especially men, feel awkward and uncomfortable walking through the girls' toys isle in stores, which are over blindingly pink. Furthermore, cultural bias and preconceptions tend to imply some sort of deviancy, or at worst, pedophilia, to men buying toys primarily targeted towards little girls. For those men who can bring themselves to take the plunge to buy the toys, they are often disappointed due to the low quality of the toys, coupled with inaccurate designs (a common trait amongst most girls toy franchises).

Ultimately, Hasbro's failure to monetize its adult fanbase lies in its failure of marketing. It is still stuck in the gender defined paradigm of marketing its Pony toys solely towards young girls.

I won't pretend to have the answers; I don't know of a truly comprehensive marketing plan that could incorporate both MLP's primary demographic as well as its sizable periphery demographic without compromising one for the other. What I do know however is this; without change, Hasbro is missing out on monetizing what is possibly the most dynamic fanbase it's ever had.

Note: This is part 1 of a two part article. On the next episode, I'll be considering gender based marketing in the context of anime and manga. 

 

Girl it up! Taikutsu Remedy!

Ladies and gentlemen, today, I, Snark, shall go where no man has gone before!

I shall watch shoujo anime.

As I have mentioned prior, I've noticed a bit of a discrepancy in the anime fandom, where whilst it seems fairly commonplace for girls to like anime aimed at boys, the reverse is not as everyday a sight.

Therefore, I, Snark, shall take the plunge! I shall watch a really girly anime in full, and blog about every single episode I watch! But first, I need your help! To be honest, I know jackshit about shoujo and josei anime, so I need you guys to recommend something to me. After a few days, I will tally up all the recommendations, and watch whichever show gannered the most votes.

But before y'all start recommending, I must first lay a few ground rules;

1. The show must be fairly recent; preferably within the past eight years
2. It must be no more then 26 episodes
3. It must be fairly indicative of the shoujo or josei genre. I know this is a subjective term, but just don't try recommend GaoGaiGar or something.
4. It can't be Ouran High School Host Club; I've already seen that

Well, that's all! Recommend away readers! And with your help, we shall girl up the anime blogosphere! One episode at a time!

Anime's Greatest Openings

Ahh, anime openings, a staple in the anime diet. Watching our favourite anime just wouldn't be the same without first getting things rolling with a minute and a half of watching characters dance or fight to some manufactured tune churned out by whatever musically untalented seiyuu turned singer is popular at the time.

Now despite that, we all still love these opening segments and rightly so; they're a fun, enjoyable little piece of fanservice before kicking into the show. Obviously we all have our personal favourites, and here are mine;

Black Lagoon - Red Faction

The Black Lagoon opening, a badass song for a badass anime. Despite the hilariously mangled engrish, this opening is a surprisingly apt descriptor of both the nihilistic pseudo-philosophy and the over the top action of Black Lagoon.

Cutey Honey - Cutey Honey Theme

It was exceedingly difficult choosing between Cutey Honey's opening and that of Mazinger Z, but since I didn't want Go Nagai to be everywhere in this post, one had to win out and it was Honey. Since the first Cutey Honey anime aired in 1973, this theme has been the definitive Cutey Honey song and has played as the opening for every iteration of Cutey Honey since.

Evangelion - Zankoku na Tenshi no Thesis

Even though I'm not an Eva fan, I must admit, this is one of the definitive openings in anime. Pretty much any anime fan worth their salt knows the tune of Zankoku na Tenshi no Thesis, and more then a few of them can sing the whole damn thing.

Kotetsushin Jeeg - Stormbringer

Wanna know a cool piece of trivia? Ever since I first saw Kotetsushin Jeeg, it's been my goal in life to make love with this song playing.

King Gainer - King Gainer Over!

Aside from having a massive ear worm of a song, this opening features dancing robots, what more could you possibly need?

And finally, last but definitely not least, the opening that is to me, the greatest anime opening of all time...

Shin Mazinger Shogeki Z-Hen - The Gardian

OH MY GOD. Never before have I seen a single opening so perfectly capture the very essence of super robots! From the hotblooded action to the manly determination, Shin Mazinger's 2nd opening is quite easily the grandaddy of super robot openings. What else would you expect from a song called 'The GARdian'?

Well then, these are my favourites. Now feel free to share yours!

A Question for the Girls

Ok, so this post is gonna be a little different from my usual. Why? Because for once, instead of writing my opinions and telling you what to think, I'm going to do what I've never done before and actually give a crap about what you have to say!

Anyway, onto the topic; it doesn't really take a genius to notice that anime seems to be a very male dominated industry. Whilst there are obviously shoujo and josei titles out there, very rarely do they break out into mainstream acceptance. Ouran Host Club and some of the CLAMP work may have done very well with both male and female audiences, but they are a rarity, with most popular mainstream titles being originally targeted towards male audiences.

This I believe, is further compounded in Akihabara, the otaku promised land. I've been to Japan twice now, and both times I had spent a considerable number of days in Akiba, where I was surrounded by a nonstop montage of everything that could possibly appeal to a man, that being tits and giant robots (and also lolis and moe, but I refuse to acknowledge them).

Just like the anime industry, Akiba was very much a man's town. There were stores that catered to female audiences (I once accidentally bought a yaoi manga from one when I mistook the two characters on the cover for chicks), but they were few and generally off the main road. For the most part, all the largest and most visible stores generally catered to men and the women who enjoy big plastic tits.

Similarly, one of the most striking aspects of Akiba is the sheer gender imbalance of the place. It wouldn't be an exageration for me to say that I saw about one chick for every ten guys. Furthermore, most of the women I saw there were simply working either as store keepers or maid cosplayers who constantly try to sell you shit/prostitute themselves/annoy you.

Likewise, the online fandom, whilst counting many women amongst its ranks, seems geared primarily towards the male point of view. Online goliaths such as Danny Choo and others are almost invariably men, whereas sites such as Sankaku Complex take it one step further by exhibiting blatently anti-feminist views (I realize not all women are feminist, but it's 3am and I'm too tired to get into details).

Having observed Akihabara and popular anime fandom in general, it seems hard not to conclude that anime is primarily targeted towards men, with women as a subsidiary market. Yet, this doesn't appear to be case. In the anime blogosphere, there are many female bloggers; on my blogroll alone, Riiana, Koshiko, Duckie, Meimi, Coeli, Anna and Devon are but few of the seemingly many female fans. Similarly, anime conventions generally seem to have a pretty even mix of both genders.

So my question to you girls out there is, what's it like to be a female otaku? I'm going to go and a limb here and assume that most of you don't quite like animated tits as much as I do, so what's it about this strange little fandom that appeals to you?

As I've mentioned, anime and its fandom seems very much geared towards men, seeming at times almost hostile to women. Yet, here you are. Nonetheless, while we're all anime fans here, I'm presuming your experiences as female fans are vastly different from mine as a male fan, so please, feel free to share those experiences.

(Guys, feel free to post as well)

EDIT: I forgot to mention in my earlier, these anti-feminist views that seem embedded in anime fandom have become distinctly manifest during the recent rape game ban debacle. According to quite a few blogs I've read, feminist are now apparently the worst oppressors in the world. Kim Jong-Il be damned; these feminist and their inhumane beliefs of equal rights are the real villains.

Seriously, what's the deal with moe?

WHY. DO. YOU. EXIST!?

Frequent readers of my blog would be well acquainted with my unbridled hatred of moe. In fact, I have written several posts on how I believe we can best combat this phenomenon known as moe. However, those posts have generally been snarky and less then serious. This time however, I must ask with utmost sobriety; exactly what the fuck is so goddamned fucking appealing about moe???

Before the inevitable rant, I figured I'd introduce some context to this post; lately, I've been trying to get into Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. And whilst the anime has been generally enjoyable, I just can't get over how incredibly moe the titular main character, Haruka is. And it pisses the shits out of me!

For every joke or amusing anime reference Nogizaku Haruka throws at me (the GaoGaiGar and Shana ones in ep 4 being particularly funny), I must subsequently endure Haruka's annoying moe tendencies such as her crippling shyness or her airheadedness. Please tell me, why the fuck do people find social or mental retardation appealing?

And this is not just Haruka, pretty much every goddamned moe character have traits that if a person possessed in real life, would compel me to punch them.

What the fuck is appealing about clumsiness? What the fuck is appealing about stupidity?? What the fuck is appealing about incompetence??? WHY THE FUCK DOES EVERY GODDAMNED ANIME FEEL THE NEED TO PUT A FUCKING MOE CHARACTER IN THE CAST!?

Now I know I sound angry, and trust me, I am; I am sick to fucking death with having good shows spoiled for me simply because I can no longer suppress my gag reflex everytime the goddamned moeblob pops on the screen. Nogizaka Haruka for one, will forever languish in the depths of my harddrive as the main character simply disgusts me too much.

Nonetheless, I must ask this most pertinent of questions; what is it about moe that is so fucking appealing? I make it no secret that I hold nothing but contempt for it, but I still want to know why other people like it. I will probably never agree with them, but at least I might come out with some understanding of how people could love that which I loathe most.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch some porn; rather then making me what to kill someone, the women in those merely make me want to masturbate.

The Blessed Mystery of Anime - What Makes a Good Dub?

I love dubs. That fact would be obvious to anyone who reads my blog with any sort of regularity. However, whilst I would passionately argue in the defense of dubbing, I also understand the fact that that debate is old, tired and essentially a relic of the VHS era.

However, there is more to argue about dubbing then just it's merits as compared to subtitles.

Oftentimes, I hear people tell me that they're happy to listen to dubs so long as the dub is good. This raises a rather pertinent question; what the hell actually makes a good dub?

Obviously good acting is a prerequisite that I'm sure everyone can agree on, but beyond that, the waters are insidiously murky.

Between what I've read around cyberspace, and the discussions I've had with fellow fans, I think it is safe for me to say that there are two general schools of thought regarding what makes a quality dub.

The first school somewhat resembles the subbing fan community, in that they prefer that the English dub matches the original Japanese dub work as closely as possible, given the constraints of language.

This school believes that the English and Japanese voices should match closely, and that all references to Japanese culture, even the exceptionally obscure, should remain in order to best preserve the creative vision of the original director.

In contrast, the second school of thought takes a more creative bent on dubbing, arguing that whilst the original spirit of the anime should be honoured, room most certainly exists for creative reinterpretation in order to adapt, or even improve the original work.

This creativity manifests itself in different ways, be it reinterpretations of characters (be it in voices, traits or even personalities), replacing Japanese cultural references with Western ones (though the extent varies, from 4Kids butchering, to only changing incredibly obscure references) and so forth.

Proponents of the first, more purist school of thought, often cite anime such as FLCL as a shining example of a dub done right.

This hardly comes as a surprise, as director Kazuya Tsurumaki famously oversaw the entire English dubbing process. As a result, with the exception of a few references to Western pop culture, the dub was almost hauntingly faithful to the original Japanese dub. The characters themselves sounded so similar to their Japanese voices, it may as well have been the original actors speaking English.

On the other hand of the spectrum, the more creative school of thought (and I rank myself among them) cite other dubs, such as Martian Successor Nadesico and Black Lagoon as being the pinnicle of dub work.

Nadesico for instance added greater layers of complexity to characters by adding traits not originally found in the Japanese work. For instance, resident fangirl Hikaru's otakuness was made all the more pronounced by her propensity to write self insert slash fanfiction, a hobby that was nonexistent in the Japanese version.

Black Lagoon on the other hand overloads the English dub with Western references that never existed in the original. Far from distracting the viewer, this makes the world they live in far more believable and real then the Japanese dub ever managed.

However, whilst I believe that creative reinterpretation often improves upon original works, there is always the risk of tarnishing or even omitting traits in the original Japanese that appealed to the audience in the first place.

Kamina in the Gurren Lagann dub for instance, sounded far more brotherly to Simon then his Japanese counterpart did. However, this more human sounding interpretation came at the cost of his over the top manliness, which was what drew most fans to him in the first place, thereby lessening his character in the eyes of many fans.

As the dubbing industry grows, I believe this will be the crossroad that we will ultimately reach. The two schools of thought are, I believe, antithetical to each other, and thus a conscious choice must be made as to what exactly constitutes a good dub.

As I have already stated, I believe that we should not be constrained by vision of the original director; they are not perfect by virtue of their Japaneseness, and thus room most definitely exists for dubbing companies to retain the essence of the director's vision, whilst improving on his or her work.

This philosophy also comes with the obvious risk of potentially ruining characters or even stories, but it is a risk I am willing to take. Ultimately, I have faith in the Western dubbing industry, and their ability to improve on an original work.

However, this is not a decision for me alone. It is for the greater fan community to decide on which direction these companies should take. And with that in mind, I ask you; what is the place of creativity in dubbing?

The West Strikes Back - In Defense of Dubbing, Second Phase

About a week ago, I proudly hoisted the banner of dub lovers everywhere. Upon retrospect, I think I may have come off as too aggressive in that post, and might have misled some to thinking that I have an active dislike of people who prefer subs.

That is not true.

Whilst I will probably never willingly watch a show in subs if a dub is available (unless the dub truly is earth shatteringly bad. So far, only Genshiken has ever earned that dishonor), I can respect the decisions of those who prefer subs for well thought out reasons.

So no. I don't hate people who prefer subs. I do however, hate certain subsets of the people in the sub camp.

As I had pointed out in the last post, one subsection of the team sub that I hate are those who insist on the innate superiority of Japanese VAs for no apparent reason other then the fact that they're Japanese.

There are two other groups that I didn't point out in the last post, which is what I intend to rectify today.

The first, are those douches who claim that they prefer subs because they're, "true/avid anime fans."

That's an argument that has about as much merit as a steaming pile of horse manure.

As fandom can't be quantified, one cannot ever accurately assess whether one is a greater or lesser fan.

However, I can say this; my computer hard drive is loaded with several hundred gigabytes of anime, my entire dvd collection largely consists of anime, every single book that I've bought in the last few years which haven't been non-fiction titles have been manga, my desk is literred with figures, a vast array of miscelleneous items in my house such as cups, phonestraps, posters and so forth are anime related, I've been to anime conventions in multiple countries, and I've spent days walking the streets of Akihabara.

For personal reasons I do not refer to myself as an otaku, but that word is still a pretty fucking apt descriptor.

So don't give me this bullshit about how the fact you jerk off to subs somehow makes you a "true" anime fan.

And a common argument that follows the "true fan" claim is that they don't want dubs to ruin the director's artistic vision.

Now let's get this straight; Anime. Is Not. Fucking. Art.

You want art? Go to the local art gallery, go listen to classical music, go visit the theater. In fact, for fellow Sydney-siders, there's a new Tom Stoppard play that's on at the moment, go watch that if you want some art. Also, Wicked is coming to town in a few months, go watch that for your art fix too.

Anime however, is not art. It's essentially the animated equivalent of a sitcom or a TV show; a commercial endeavour whose primary purpose is making money. Any artistic merit is just bonus.

Just because an anime might be intelligently written or thought provoking doesn't somehow make it art. Every once in a while, an anime comes out that is so ahead of it's time, that it can rightly claim it's place as art. But those are the incredibly rare exceptions.

Also, if we really want to go into the whole argument about how the director wanted people to see his/her work, I'm pretty sure s/he didn't intend to have fucking text hovering around the bottom of the screen every fucking time a character opens their mouth.

Now the final subset of camp sub that pisses me off; the idiots who think that just because they like reading stupid little text at the bottom of the screen somehow means that they're smart and well read, whereas people who like dubs are dumb.

No. Reading subs does not make you smarter, and preferring dubs does not mean you're dumb.

I should know; I'm a fucking Mensa member with a tested IQ of 180. I am a fucking student in fucking law school. Everyday, I have to read and comprehend court reports and legal critiques, mostly written by Judges and legal academics, who rank amongst the most pointlessly verbose and ineloquent people in the known universe.

I can read well, and I goddamned have some fucking grey matter in my head. And the same applies for many of my fellow fans who prefer dub work.

So stop fucking patronizing us with your bullshit.

You might prefer subs for whatever reason, but stop thinking that somehow makes you better then us. Cause here's something that might surprise you; it doesn't.

The West Strikes Back - In Defense of Dubbing

Ahh, the dub/sub debate. Nothing throws non-Japanese speaking anime fans the world over into little hissy fits quite so effectively as this timeworn argument.

Anyway, since every single bastard on the internetz seems to have an opinion about this, I thought I'd throw in mine as well.

And whilst I'm certain that I'm in the minority when I say this, I'm going to anyway;

I

Fucking

Love

Dubs.

Now I've heard all the popular arguments from pro-subbers, how they like anime to sound as it's meant to be, how the Japanese VAs are infinitely superior to their English speaking counterparts and so on. And quite frankly, these arguments sound like utter crap. Nonetheless, in the spirit of discourse, here are my arguments for why dubs are awesome:

We understand what the shit they're saying

The fundamental reason why dubs exist in the first place; so that English speakers can understand what on earth is being said. Now I realize subs serve the same purpose, but there are several reasons why they are fundamentally inferior.

Firstly, subs are often abbreviated so as to not clog up the screen with text. This runs the risk of losing meaning, or at least unique styles of speech a character might have. In contrast, dubs are allowed greater freedom for verbosity, thus allowing dialogue to be as intricate and eloquent as in the original Japanese. Furthermore, verbal tics, styles of speech and accents can be preserved (or at least appropriated) in a way that subs are incapable of.

Furthermore, subs alone do not portray emotions. Now I know that is the job for the Japanese dialogue to accomplish, but the problem is, unless one is accustomed to listening and speaking Japanese, all but the least subtle nuances of speech would be lost on us.

As a viewer with only limited understanding of Japanese, I can only pick up the most obvious changes of tone in Japanese speech. For the most part, it all simply sounds like unintelligible sounds with variations in volume.

In contrast, dubs allow the viewer to appreciate the full extent of the subtleties of the spoken word. From pitch to tone to pacing, familiarity with the English language allows one to pick up these subtleties as portrayed by the voice actors, thus providing far greater insight into the character then subs would be capable of.

And as an added bonus, dubs mean that I don't always have to have my full attention on the screen to understand what's going on. When cleaning the house, cooking dinner or so forth, I enjoy doing these mundane activities with the tv on. English dubbing allows me to follow the story without having to pay too much attention to the screen; a feat that subs are incapable of.

English speaking VAs are actually quite skilled. It's just that weaboos won't fucking admit it

Another popular argument in favour of subs is the supposedly inherent superiority Japanese voice actors. Now I'm sorry, but that's fucking bullshit.

English voice actors are just as talented, dedicated and passionate as their Japanese counterparts. If you want proof, just look at the amount of fan interaction a lot of these people partake in, all the cons they attend in order to get fan feedback, all the forums they browse to get an indication of what fans think of their performance.

And all this, despite the fact how every third person they talk to is some douche who complains about English dubbing without ever listening to it to begin with.

Many proponents of subbing seem to be stuck in the mindset that dubs are still been done by tiny companies with like 10 staff, with just as small a pool of voice talent to choose from. Those days are past. In fact, they've been past for like 10 fucking years!

Today, localization companies have hefty budgets and a large array of talent to choose from. Many of whom are very talented individuals who I'm sure weaboos would be worshipping had they spoke Japanese rather then English.

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Johnny Yong Bosch, Crispin Freeman, Christina Vee, Lisa Ortiz, Yuri Lowenthal and Steven Blum are but a very small number of talents that the English speaking anime community takes for granted.

In Closing
As would be obvious by now; I vastly prefer my animes dubbed rather then subbed. Oftentimes, it's the dubbing that most strongly influences me in buying anime dvds.

Of course, I readily admit that not all dubs are good, and some are quite obviously horrific. The Genshiken dub still haunts me in my sleep.

Nonetheless, just as how as how some English dubbing efforts fall flat, some Japanese productions are also poor. The fact that the voiceacting is in Japanese doesn't magically prevent the effort from sucking.

In the end, there will always be some people who will always prefer subs for whatever reason. Whilst I would probably never share that preference, I can somewhat respect it.

What I want to see however, is that idiots stop lumping all English dubs into a blanket term of suck, rather then taking the time to evaluate and appreciate each dub on it's own merits.

So in closing, here's a dubbed scene from Mahou Shoujo Nanoha A's. Enjoy (and beware spoilers):



So that's my two cents. What's your opinion on the dub vs sub debate? And feel free to advocate subbing; I'll respect your opinion despite how wrong you are ;)