I feel guilty for liking Masami Obari

It's no secret that I've largely left the anime fandom due to the overwhelming torrent of mediocrity that has seeped out the industry in past years. In fact, with the exception of the upcoming Persona 4 adaptation, I really can't see myself returning to active participation in the fandom anytime soon.

Given how much I've moaned and groaned about the lack of quality in anime, I must admit, I feel some degree of hypocrisy when I utter the phrase, "Masami Obari is one of my favourite directors."

For those who don't know Mr. Obari, he is pretty much anime Michael Bay; he absolutely loves giant robots and the objectification of women, and he couldn't tell a coherent story to save his life. So, pretty much like the live action Transformer movies, but anime.

If you are unfamiliar with his work, he is the director of mecha anime such as Dancouga Nova and Gravion, both being shows ranking among my top 10 despite no objective merit of their own, as well as horrifying fetish pornography, such as Angel Blade, which Meimi once reviewed, much to her horror and disillusionment.

Obari is a rather strange chap. In the early 90s, he led a revolution in character design and action choreography, resulting in a sea of competitors. However, as these competitors made further strides of their own, Obari stayed with the style he created, ironically looking like an out of date copy in the process. In fact, certain shots have become so iconic of the man, that they appear in nearly every work he's done, almost to the point of self parody.

What truly defines him as a subpar director however, is his complete inability to tell a story. Often times, his works start with interesting plot premises, only to devolve into an incoherent mess with no satisfying resolution. In fact, if anybody can tell me that they made sense of the story of Super Robot Wars Original Generation: The Inspector, then you are a greater man than I.

So yeah, despite being nothing more than cheap fanservice for mecha fans, I love Obari's work. There's nothing of substance in them, but goddamn, are they fun.

And with that, maybe I should apologize to fans of moe. Like them, I too am guilty of loving stuff that is nothing more than vapid, unsubstantial trash. But then again, unlike moe, I can't get arrested for my trash. So no, guess I don't want to apologize to moetards.

So I heard you like Date.

There is a character type I like to call the Capcom Hero; the ludicrously over the top guy who wears ridiculous costumes, carries ridiculous swords, spouts idiotic catchphrases, acts like a dick and thinks he's the coolest thing alive.

In any other world, that guy would either be seen as a douche, or a parody of horribly written Marty Sues.

Yet Capcom continually markets and sells these characters with great success. Devil May Cry's Dante and Sengoku Basara's Masamune Date are what I consider the ur-examples, who are intensely well loved by their respective fanbases. And as much as I like Date and the Sengoku Basara series in general, I've always liked Date on a more ironic level; as a lame, insecure dude who tries so hard to be cool that it somehow ends up actually being kinda cool.

Yet people seem to love these characters completely free of irony. I really do have to ask, why?

This is totally a post of substance!

Last week, I talked about the new My Little Pony cartoon and the fandom that had spawned around it. I particular, I drew attention to the creativity that has seemingly defined that fandom, and their ability to create new content. Well, here's some of that new content; cartoon horses engaged in faux-suicide to the tune of Engrish rap:

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. 

 

My Top 3 List of Things That Should be Adapted into Anime

Despite not having watched anime in over a year, I'd actually like to get back into it...if only something worth watching would actually come out of the decrepit cesspool that is the anime industry of today.

So, in lieu of anything watchable, here's a list of things that would totally get me back into the hobby should they ever be adapted into anime!

3. Yes, Minister

 

"Open government, Prime Minister. Freedom of information. We should always tell the press freely and frankly anything that they could easily find out some other way."

That's right, I'm starting my list with an old British sit com. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that said old British sit com is Yes, Minister, easily one of the all time greats of televised comedies.

Even back when I genuinely enjoyed anime, I could never bring myself to like anime comedies, which I always found to be tired, formulaic and frankly, low brow. So what better to revive a tired old industries than a show about old government bureaucrats? Besides, you know you'd love Sir Humphrey-chan.

2. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Oh god, I'm in love.

Wait, what's this? Nausicaa is already an anime? In fact, it was the first movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki? Why yes, but what I meant is that I want to see an adaptation of the far longer and significantly different manga version.

Whilst the Nausicaa movie will always remain one of my all time favourite movies, and Nausicaa, my favourite anime character of all time, I can't help but feel its ending was somewhat rushed, amazing though it was. Similarly, I always felt that there was a lot more story to be told about the world. That's where the manga comes in. The point where the movie ends is not even the half way point of the manga! What follows is an amazing adventure that goes far deeper into Nausicaa's character than even the movie managed. Now I know the day will never come, but how wonderful would it be if Studio Ghibli ever decided to make a 52 episode series based on their first ever feature film?

1.Burning Rangers

To the brand new sky we dive! Wings we have of shining white!

Rounding up what is easily one of the more ecliptic lists I've made is the 1998 fire fighter sim, Burning Rangers. For the dirty Communists amongst you who don't know what Burning Rangers is, it's an old Sega video game, where you played as the wondrously cheesy superheroes, the Burning Rangers, a team of futuristic fire fighters in a bizarre society where technology has wiped out all manner of danger or disease, except fires, for unexplained reasons.

If the idea of superhero fire fighters doesn't make you wet with excitement, then I refer you to the Burning Rangers themesong, easily the greatest themesong in the history of the universe:

And if that doesn't make you wet with excitement, then clearly you have forgotten what happiness feels like. Kindly report to the nearest laboratory, you robot.

A Rant Regarding Them Gay Folk - Thank God I'm Not American

We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog for a legal/semi-political rant.

Those of you who follow American politics might have heard about the recent case of the three Iowa Supreme Court Justices who ruled in favour of gay marriage who were voted out of court by their fellow Iowans a few days ago.

This is balls crunchingly ridiculous.

Now before you moral guardians out there get on my case, my revulsion with this whole affair has nothing to do with gay marriage. For the record, yes, I do believe gay people have just as much right to be miserable as straight people. But that is not the issue here. Before I am a social liberal, I am both a positivist and a Dixonian legalist; part of what this entails is that I believe the rule of law must stand, regardless of any moral issues I may have with it.

My contention here is that America is the only country I've ever heard of where people vote for judges.

This is insane!

The judiciary is the last sanctuary from politics and special interests. It's very existence hinges on judges being able to make rulings without having to look over their backs to see if they've pissed off anyone. Similarly, the entire reason judges are appointed and not elected are so to keep the judiciary free (or as free as possible) of politics.

As I've mentioned prior, I'm a pretty big fan of the separation of powers. And to see one of the three arms of government metaphorically anally violated like that is kinda depressing.

Anyway, I think I need to veer this blog back into the realm of anime before Taikutsu Remedy gets renamed into Activism Remedy, so uh...dakimakuras suck. Go sleep on normal pillows. Yeah.

I Hate Anime

This is rather embarrassing to admit, but I've finally come to the same realization that pretty much everyone must have had the first time they so much as looked at my blog; I hate anime.

Yes, this is an anime blog. And yes, I watch a metric crapton of anime.

Yet, this doesn't mean I actually like the stuff. No, what this means is that I've been lucky enough to find quite a few titles that don't make me want to smash a kitten's face in with a jackhammer.

I hate anime.

I hate those stupid saucer eyed moeblobs with shit for brains.

I hate those ridiculous 20 minute long porn commercials that pass for anime now.

I hate those filthy child molesters these shows are made for.

I hate the fact that every goddamn show is set in a highschool, again to cater to pedophiles.

I hate those spineless eunachs that constitute male leads in anime.

I hate the desperate, brainless sluts that inadvertently fall head over heals over said eunach.

I hate the entire harem genre in general.

I hate the fact said harem genre even has an audience.

I hate said audience of said harem genre.

I hate that moe is a genre unto itself now.

I hate the moe genre in general.

I hate the fact said moe genre even has an audience.

I hate said audience of said moe genre.

I hate that anime tries to present 13 year olds as sexy and desireble.

I hate that fans accept said 13 year olds as sexy and desireble.

I hate visual novels.

I hate the ridiculous number of visual novel adaptations there are.

I hate all the stupid fads anime fans get sweeped up in, from Haruhi to whatever crap Key is producing at the moment.

I hate that people still haven't realized K-On is a mindnumbing piece of shit.

I hate tsundere.

I hate that entire personalities can be defined in a single word.

I hate that said flat personalities are somehow considered good, or even prefereble.

I hate the idiots who like said flat personalities.

I hate that anime has devolved into an industry that caters to retards, shut-ins and pedophiles.

I hate anime.

Persona 3 Portable is a piece of shit

Tears over what could have been...

(Beware! Here there be spoilers!)

It is with great sadness and regret that I must utter the following words; I hate Persona 3 Portable.

P3 was one of the greatest RPGs I had ever played, and naturally I assumed that its portable remake would do justice to the game that essentially introduced the Persona series to everyone but the one guy who had even heard of Personas 1 and 2 before 3's release.

However, that was not to be the case.

P3Portable, whilst generally a faithful adaptation of P3, was to feature one significant difference from it's predecessor; the ability to play as the female protagonist.

Naturally this excited me greatly, for in my naivete, I had assumed that by being able to play a girl, I could finally vicariously act out my humongous mancrush on Junpei Iori (the greatest video game character ever conceived) by choosing to pursue a romantic S-Link with him.

However, all my hopes -along with any desire to play P3P- were dashed when I found out that Junpei would not be a romantic option, as it would interrupt the storyline with his girlfriend, Chidori.

Well screw that bitch! It's not like she even alive, let alone still with him by the game's end!

Despite my protestations, Atlus has foolishly decided to deny players the option to romance Junpei, and in doing so, have destroyed any reason for anybody to even touch this stupid game.

Yet, there is consolation to be had, no matter how fleeting. Below are some illustrations of what this game would be like had I been in charge of the S-Links. As you can see, it would have been a much better game, perhaps even perfect. Sadly, it was not to be. But we can still dream my friends, we can dream.

Holy hell it's been ages

Attention! To the two people who might actually still care, I, Snark, have returned from the vast sea of obscurity!

And so, let this land be awash with cheering and dancing!

...yeah.

Anyway, so I'm back, it's been months since I've last posted, and for once, I've got a decent reason for that; it looks like I've entered the fabled burn out phase that every anime fan inevitably faces at some point in their life, where they simply don't have the same passion for stupid, big-eyed Japanese cartoons that they once had.

Over the past few months, I have essentially watched close to no anime whatsoever. For a while, I tried to complete Eureka Seven, but then gave up when I realized that I hated Renton, even after character development, and wanted nothing more then to see Eureka get run over by a truck.

But never fear dear readers! That isn't to say I've given up entirely on anime! For you see, rather then watching crap, lately I've been wasting my money on anime related crap of a different variety; childrens' card games.

Over the holidays I had been introduced by a friend to a Japanese TCG (trading card game) known as Weiss Schwarz. To the uninitiated, Weiss Schwarz is a shitty card game where two players command their legions of moe blob characters from shitty moe shows to do moe battle with one another.

Naturally, I was first repulsed by the idea of playing such a moe-fied card game with people who I could only assume were pedophiles. But then, I had an epiphany; this was probably the only avenue where I could beat moefans and not get arrested for it!

And so began my wretched journey into Japanese card games.

In order to make sure I wouldn't be ensnared by the dread tendrils of moe, I made a promise to myself to only play the Manliest cards I had. And so, I present to you, my deck of moe destruction; the Mighty Junpei Deck!

It is with this indomitably masculine deck that I lay waste to all other, lesser, school-girl infested, unmanly decks.

But yeah, aside from Weiss Schwarz, I haven't really been doing anything anime related to be honest.

Luckily, the manga side of things are looking a bit brighter as I've been closely following Legend of Koizumi and Hayate X Blades; both awesome manga that I'll hopefully be reviewing soon.

Overall though, I've been going very light on anime and manga in the past few months. Coincidentally enough however, my interest in pro wrestling has been enjoying a bit of a renaissance, with me watching a lot more of the WWE as well as independent promotions such as Ring of Honor and Shimmer.

So if anyone is curious about what I've really been spending my time on lately, I've been hunting down videos of the now sadly retired Rebbecca Knox.

In closing, I figured I might as well address something; some of y'all may be wondering how the hell I transitioned from anime to something so disparate as wrestling. Well...LuFisto here may help answer that;

So I called Japan...

I have accused Japan of pedophilia many, many, many times. And whilst the numerous loli and shota titles that come out of Japan every year seem like irrefutable proof for my accusations, I figured it was only fair that Japan be given a chance to defend itself. And so I decided to give Japan a call...

Megami readers are a bunch of pedophiles

So I was browsing through the scourge of the internet for a little bit today, when I came across a most curious sight; a list of the top 10 anime characters as voted by readers of Megami Magazine.

As you'd no doubt surmise from the title of this post, I do not approve. Nonetheless, I'll write down the list, from 10 to 1, in addition to my thoughts concerning each character.


10) Hitagi Senjougahara (Bakemonogatari)
Pretentious pedophile bait.





9) Misaka Mikoto (A Certain Magical Index/ A Certain Scientific Railgun)
Pedophile bait.

8) Kurimu Sakurano (Seitokai no Ichizon)
Pedophile bait.





7) Horo (Spice and Wolf)
Bestiality fetishists bait.





6) Takamachi Nanoha (Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha)
Pedophile bait.





5) Nodoka Haramura (Saki)
Gambling pedophile bait.





4) Katsura Hinagiku (Hayate no Gotoku)
Pedophile bait.





3) Yui Hirasawa (K-On!)
Retard fetishists/pedophile bait.





2) Fate Testarossa (Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha)
BDSM fetishists/Pedophile bait.





1) Mio Akiyama (K-On!)
Extreme pedophile bait.

Goddammit Japan, we all know you think with your dicks when voting in polls like this, but can't you at least vote for a few more characters that are above the statutory age of consent!?

Anime and the Violence of Homophobia

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Anime has never been the most progressive of art forms. Of course there are some productions that break societal norms, but as a whole, anime has generally been surprisingly, at times even offensively, regressive.

One particular area that I wish to focus on for this post, is that of th violent reactions of characters in response to homosexual advances that is so common in anime.

With the new season underway, I have heard quite a few good things about A Certain Scientific Railgun, and have recently watched the first two episodes. Overall, it's not bad, I'm probably not its primary target audience, but I can see some of the appeal. That said however, one aspect of the show that I've found strongly objectionable has been Mikoto's oftentimes violent reactions to Kuroko's sexual advances.

For those unfamiliar with A Certain Scientific Railgun, Mikoto is a teenage girl with awesome psychic powers, and Kuroko is totally gayballs for her. And in her gayness, Kuroko oftentimes tries to bed Mikoto in ways that border on the absurd, which generally results in Mikoto pummeling her, either physically or with her bullshit magical lightning powers.

Now this almost always played for comedy, and that is partly what I find so objectionable about it. I feel as if A Certain Scientific Railgun trivialises the very real violence that homosexual men and women are often met with for no reason save their sexuality. Sadly, I can't recall particular titles at this moment, but this is not the first show I've seen that answers all homosexuality with violence; many anime in the past have had straight heroes physically assaulting homosexuals for the 'crime' of being attracted to them.

In Australia, the case of R v Green illustrates the frightening reality of violence against homosexuals. Quickly summarised, the accused, Green, had brutally killed a friend for making homosexual advances to him. In the case, Justice Kirby said;

"In my view, the ‘ordinary person’ in Australian society today is not so homophobic as to respond to a non-violent sexual advance by a homosexual person as to form an intent to kill or to inflict grievous bodily harm. He or she might, depending on the circumstances, be embarrassed; treat it first as a bad joke; be hurt; insulted. He or she might react with the strong language of protest; might use as much physical force as was necessary to effect an escape; and where absolutely necessary assault the persistent perpetrator to secure escape."

Sadly, as is often the case with the law, common sense did not prevail in this case, and the High Court held in favour of Green, with Chief Justice Brennen arguing;

"The provocation was of a very grave kind. It must have been a terrifying experience for the appellant when the deceased persisted. The grabbing and persistence are critical. Some ordinary men would feel great revulsion at the homosexual advances being persisted with in the circumstances and could be induced to so far lose their self control as to form the intention to inflict grievous bodily harm. They would regard it as a serious and gross violation of their body and their person ...

The deceased’s actions had to be stopped...

A reasonable jury might have come to the conclusion that an ordinary person, who was provoked to the degree that the applicant was provoked, could have formed an intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm upon the deceased...

A juryman or jurywoman would not be unreasonable because he or she might accept that the appellant found the deceased’s conduct ‘revolting’ rather than ‘amorous’."

Thankfully, the High Court had not been entirely bereft of reason. Justice Kirby, dissented against the absurdity of this decision;

"In my view, the ‘ordinary person’ in Australian society today is not so homophobic as to respond to a non-violent sexual advance by a homosexual person as to form an intent to kill or to inflict grievous bodily harm."

He then brings illustrates the logical conclusion of the High Courts' decision;

"If every woman who was the subject of a ‘gentle’, ‘non-aggressive’ although persistent sexual advance, in a comparable situation to that described in the evidence in this case could respond with brutal violence...

Any unwanted sexual advance, heterosexual or homosexual, can be offensive. It may intrude on sexual integrity in an objectionable way. But this court should not send the message that, in Australia today, such conduct is objectively capable of being found by a jury to be sufficient to provoke the intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm. Such a message unacceptably condones serious violence."

So why did I share that overly long story about the law? Well, firstly, cause I'm a dick, and I wanted to show off my awesome legal knowledge. But more importantly, I wanted to highlight the kind of homophobia that still exists in society today, even in the minds of such highly educated individuals such as the former Chief Justice of Australia himself.

And with that in mind, I guess my point would be it'd be nice to see a little less homophobia in anime. I know anime really isn't the harbinger of social change, but it'd be nice if everything I watched wasn't a guilty pleasure that nevertheless insulted my more objective sensibilities.

C'mon Japan, I'm the guy who openly enjoys shows about naked women who fight by lactating on each other, it's not a good sign when you can produce shows that offend even me.

On the Dread Tendrils of Moe - The Great Moe Conspiracy

Ladies, gentlemen, friends, comrades all. It saddens me to be the bearer of grave news; several months after Taikutsu Remedy bravely declared war on moe, we have made little to no progress in this, the greatest battle for our survival.

The Dark Forces of Moe continue to encroach upon our lands. From our lonely battlements, the sun seems ever fainter. Soon, the Darkness of Moe shall envelop all. Yet, at our darkest hour, we have chanced upon a glimmer of hope.

Like a candle in the dark, it's light is small and fragile, yet even the tiniest flame can banish the darkness. My friends, we have uncovered the plans of our enemies; the Dread Forces of Moe.

We have long known that they sought to envelop and bind us in chains of moe bondage. But now, we know their battle plan; they seek to tear down the men of the world, so that we will be too weak to stand against their evil.

In a previous post of mine, I mentioned my love of Queen's Blade. To which Meimi replied;

"Of course you endorse it, why in gods name wouldn't you?! You're a guy!"

In response, I lamented that whilst I liked Queen's Blade, many men did not, despite the fact that it was practically tailored for a male audience. In fact, most man I talked to professed a preference for moe shows like K-On! and Saki over Queen's Blade.

It was then that I realized, this was the very evil of Moe made manifest!

For years, the Dread Tendrils of Moe have been hard at work, changing man. Brainwashing him. Where once the proud men of the human race would gladly flock to an anime about naked women fighting each other, they now instead focus their attention on underage girls acting cute and playing music.

The time of Man is gone. Now is the age of the pedophile.

And this, dear friends, is the Wretched Legacy of Moe.

We must rebuild my friends! Remember the Golden Age! Where anime did not sexualize little girls, but instead entranced viewers with the bouncing tits of busty, adult women! Remember the times where men were men, and women were also men!

My friends, we now know that moe seeks to destroy our very concept of manhood, and replace it with a false idol of its own design. And for too long have we played into their hands. But we shall do so no more! We must destroy the agents of moe! And upon their ashes shall we rebuild our Alter of Manliness.

Long live Queen's Blade!

Long live non-pedophilia!

Long live the Age of Man!

We.

Shall.

Rebuild.

(As an aside, I've got a new poll up on the top right. Feel free to vote)

I Approve of Queen's Blade

With the 2nd season of Queen's Blade I figured now would be the perfect time for me to get something off my chest; unlike the vast majority of the anime blogosphere, I, Snark, openly and enthusiastically endorse Queen's Blade.

Now the general anime fandom has had a lot of fun deriding Queen's Blade. A particularly common complaint I've heard about the show is that the story and entire premise is ludicrously dumb. Well of course it is! It's softcore porn! What the hell did you expect!?

Of course, the greatest hypocrisy is when many of the same bloggers who lay the hate on Queen's Blade go on to sing praises over the likes of K-On, which was just as unflinchingly mindless. Apparently, substanceless moe is ok, but substanceless porn isn't. I'm sorry, but if I'm gonna watch something that's gonna shut my brain down, I'd rather watch the show that doesn't make me feel like a pedophile.

And another thing that's pissed me off about how the fandom has been treating Queen's Blade is how blatantly unfair its been judging the show. Apparently, Queen's Blade has to be anime's answer to Lord of the Rings for it to be deemed good.

Queen's Blade is softcore porn, and it should be judged as such. Instead, many bloggers have been judging it as if it were trying to be an epic fantasy like Berserk or Guin Saga, which is of course isn't, all in the search for cheap laughs. Such behaviour is monumentally stupid.

Let a show be judged for what it is; it's for the same reason I don't use the same criteria that I would when viewing Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, when watching My Sister's Hot Friend.

Edit:
As an aside, I must concede that deciding on a Queen by holding a fighting tournament is the worst system of government ever conceived.

Another reason why weak willed, submissive moeblobs suck

Regular readers of my blog know that I spend much time hating on moeblobs. Now I know not all moeblobs fall under this description, but I've found many of them to be passive, submissive girls who embody so called 'traditional feminine traits'. And to be brief, that character achtype has always pissed the shits out of me.

Well, in addition to being annoying and useless, it seems that being a passive little moebitch also leads to comparatively lower self esteem. A recent study* found that women who were tomboys in childhood generally enjoyed higher self esteem in adulthood as compared to women who spent their time pursuing more traditionally feminine ideals.

So there you have it. Another reason why being a moeblob sucks! So go, women of both the 2D and 3D worlds! Embrace your inner tomboy, and pierce the heavens with your drill!

* Michele Van Volkom, 'The Effects of Childhood Tomboyism and Family Experiences on the Self-Esteem of College Females' (2009) 43 College Student Journal 736

Philosophy is the Cancer of Anime

There are many things I hate about anime; moe, pedophilia, Kyoani, lolis, real robots and so on. However there's another aspect of anime that I hate which I haven't really touched on, and that's bullshit philosophy.

Ever since the likes of Evangelion and Serial Experiment Lain, there's been this belief that anime has to be 'provocative' and 'mature', which in Animeland, apparently means having characters continuously spout vague, cryptic nonsense and drowning the viewer in nonsensical symbolism.

No, this doesn't make an anime intelligent, it just makes it unwatchable, pretentious bullshit. If you want to convince me a character is intelligent, don't make her do pointless shit like quote Descartes; make her solve a complex mathematical equation, or accurately predict market movements, or interpret confusing legislation, that's intelligence!

Anime pseudo-philosophy is a pointless endeavor; its only purpose is the temporary self satisfaction of the viewer. So in a way, its pretty much the same thing as masturbation. Only without the porn or the vague sexual gratification. Hence, its actually a lesser form of masturbation. Therefore, every moment spent philosophizing would be better spent masturbating.

Nonetheless, I've always believed that a point is best illustrated visually, so here is the crux of my argument in comic form;

See what I mean?

Sadly, studios are going to keep producing 'deep' and 'thought provoking' anime, I can't stop them. However, I'm gonna stick with giant robots rocket punching space aliens. Y'know, stuff that's actually fun to watch.

WHAT THE SHIT!?!?

So I was curious to find out how people were reaching my blog, and I decided to see what keywords people were typing into google that got me hits. When I found...this.

WHY HUMAN RACE, WHY!?!? I WAS JUST ABOUT TO RENEW MY FAITH IN YOU, AND YOU DO THIS TO ME IN RETURN!? WHY!?!?!?!?

Why Eroge Suck - An Objective Analysis

Eroge are the second shittest idea to have ever come out of Japan, surpassed only by oppai mousepads. This is scientific fact.

Seriously, who the hell thought the idea of a game where you interact with chicks with the ultimate objective of sex was a good idea?? I want to meet the man, so that I could cut off his dick and slap him with it!

Spending hours upon mind boggling hours talking with insanely hot, yet stiflingly boring, one dimensional women in the vain hope of sex isn't my idea of a fun game; it's what I do in real life!

But since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, let me better illustrate my point with some pictures of my own. Here, you have a typical porn game set up;

And here, you have a typical Friday night in real life;

See what I mean? The game is just as mind numbing as real life!

I'm sorry Japan, but if you want me to spend my money on your shitty porn games, you're going to have to appeal to me better then that. And since I'm in a generous mood, I'm going to tell you exactly how to make me buy your shitty porn games!

In fact, it's rather simple; just combine my two favourite things; porn and giant robots!

Here, let me show you an example;

See? Giant robots powered by female orgasms (or male orgasms, should the target market be female). Now that's a winner right there! So what are you waiting for Japan? Get cracking! I give you my personal guarantee that this will be the greatest porn game of all time!

...now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go masturbate to my best idea ever.

A Real Life Moe-Blob

Regular readers of my blog will be familiar with my well documented hatred of moe. In fact, I rant about the evils of moe so regularly, I would presume some of you are getting a little bored reading about my crusade.

So I figured it's time to spice things up a little and throw a little twist into the story; I actually know a real life moe blob.

Obviously, I won't be sharing her real name, but for convenience, let's call her, "Rei", in honour of that Grand Mommy of Moeblobs, Rei Ayanami.

Anyway, despite being flesh and blood, Rei checks out most of the typical moe characteristics; she's clumsy, shy, a little airheaded at times, naive and about as innocent as a 20 year old could realistically be. Seriously, about the only thing missing is that she's not a tsundere.

And as I have mentioned in many, many posts about moe, I find none of her moe traits to be appealing in the least. Admittedly, I don't hate her the way I hate anime moeblobs, in fact, I consider her to be a very good friend.

But that might have something to do with the fact that she has a sweet rack.

Anime is Unrealistic

Anime is not like real life, and real life is not like anime. This is the sad yet inescapable truth we all live with. And so, with this theme in mind, I'd like to share with you a tragic little story.

Meet Latooni Subota.

She's 14 years old, a gothic lolita and giant robot pilot. Cool, calculated and unemotional, Latooni is as big a real robot pilot as you're going to get. In fact, she's pretty much Rei Ayanami as a goth loli.

Now meet Ryusei Date.

Ryusei here is a rash, hotblooded, incurable super robot otaku and winner of Latooni's girlish heart.

So you might be asking, what exactly is so unrealistic about this? Well, nothing so far. Young, unrequited love is very much a norm of day to day life.

However, this is where fantasy deviates from reality. As we all know, Ryusei is a massive super robot otaku. In fact, he's pretty much me as an anime character. Latooni however is firmly entrenched in the real robot camp. And yet, in spite of this great barrier , look at how crazily hotblooded Latooni is willing to get just to win his love:

And despite Latooni's efforts which would impress even Kamina, Ryusei completely fails to take notice of her!

Ryusei, what the hell???

And this dear readers, is where anime completely divorces itself from reality. Ladies, don't let Ryusei discourage you. If any of you plan on getting me to notice your unrequited love; become a hotblooded mecha pilot. I'll marry you on the spot.