welcome datacomp

Hello everyone. You will notice a marked drop in translation quality today because it’s not kransom but me, Shii, bushwhacking with my copy of Rikaichan. This evening I started recieving furious retweets from @AwatakeTakahiro regarding a recently accepted amendment to Tokyo’s Youth Protection and Nurturing Ordinance (青少年健全育成条例改正) which has been posted to Scribd. Awatake lives in Saitama so I figure something must be up here. I here translate a post by Yoshitoshi ABe regarding the amendment.

I was surprised recently by the major problems imbedded in the “Youth Protection and Nurturing Ordinance amendment”. Even though the amendment is coming into force just now, I hadn’t heard of it before a few days ago. For a full explanation, please visit this site: http://mitb.bufsiz.jp/

Simply put, even for characters of a story who do not actually exist, and even those who are portrayed not as minors but as adult figures, sales of works in which the panties of these characters can be seen can be restricted if you have a hunch that they appear childlike, for one thing; and more generally, it is an unconstitutional and ridiculous piece of legislation. I’m not talking about children’s books. I mean mass market publications, anime, games, and all manners of works. Both Doraemon and Sazae-san are right out!

http://otakurevolution.blog17.fc2.com/blog-entry-787.html

As you read more about this, please try and think about whether or not you want to live in a society that can pass these sorts of laws without resistance. What follows are my own thoughts. (I will employ the terms “good depictions, bad depictions”, but these are not my conceptions of good and bad. Rather, I only mean how these things are percieved in our modern society. Just making sure [this is understood].)

* * *

In order for people to understand and distinguish between good and evil, it is necessary to have good things to point out and explain that “this is good”, and have evil things to point out and explain that “this is evil”, in the same way.

If we lock a child in a sterilized room, they would not grow into a healthy adult with a normal heart!

[Corrected] Among porn and violent works, there are depictions of acts you are likely to never see in real life, yet which, if seen, would leave you mentally scarred. These must exist within society so that we can explain how they are wrong. If we regulate their expression, then, being raised in a place where such things do not exist, people will not have that chance to learn what is wrong or dangerous.

For example, war is obviously a bad thing, but even so, what do you think would happen if we had a complete ban on depictions of war? Children would wonder if war was good or bad, and what would happen if our society had something called war, and despite this foolishness would unfortunately grow into adults.

For us [humans], at some point on the path to adulthood it is necessary to know about these bad things.

For all the various evils in this world, only through “becoming a perpetrator”, “becoming a victim”, or “experiencing a depiction”, and these three means alone, can we understand them as evil.

Of course, I do not mean to say that “reading depictions of crime will cause you to become a criminal”. The only way one can learn to differentiate between good and evil is to be allowed to apply their own well-developed thought and reasoning to these materials. If you are forced to memorize “this is good, this is evil” out of a textbook, this is is not the same as discernment itself.

At the risk of repeating myself, there are for sale in the market today exceedingly brutal and violent things, and other things that the world has generally deemed unpleasant. I think it’s good for people with proper understanding to say “this is unpleasant”. That is, seeing these portrayals of evil, adults will be able to explain that they are bad, and this itself instructs children in proper thought. If there were no depictions of evil about, we would lose those necessary examples to instruct people in proper understanding, and the basis for knowing what is good and what is bad within society would become flimsy at best. That society would simply be a sterilized room.

If I ever become father to children, in the place that I live in, I believe that it would be impossible to raise them healthily in this weird kind of sterilized society lacking all violent or sexually explicit notions. I do not want to live in that kind of society!

Humankind has been entrusted with much power, but if we abuse that power to do away with things that we do not like, then thinking in that way, we will give birth to this sterilized room kind of society. The purpose of freedom of speech, in my opinion, is to defend against precisely that sort of thing.

[Anyway, I e-mailed the Tokyo Assembly and Tokyo City public contacts with these thoughts, in accordance with the approved format for sending public comments.]

Perhaps you remember seeing a post made on this blog a number of months ago, “Manga Criticism Translation: ‘At First, I Wanted to be a Manga-ka’: Analyzing the Nausicaa Manga”, a translation of an analysis of the Nausicaa manga by Kumi Kaoru . Perhaps you didn’t read it, perhaps you did! Either way, I’m happy to announce that the second part of the translation has been posted up on Ogiue Maniax for all to read!

I will hopefully actually be updating this blog within the next week with an actual article, so stay tuned here, too!

Yotsuba& vol. 1 (Azuma Kiyohiko/Yen Press)
Bought this out of curiosity. ADV’s old translation had their usual problems, like occasionally being wildly wrong and misspelling random names. The new one is fine, but comes with all kinds of localization decisions that just annoy me. Everything written (SFX, signs, etc.) is left untranslated and put in notes, even though nothing at all is interesting about the original, all the honorifics are used (with more notes), and there are extra cutesy misspellings that are only funny sometimes. That being said, there’s nothing really wrong with it, except for the horrible filth:

…I think I’m bored of Yotsuba now. Actually reading this again just made me want to get the new Azumanga chapters.

The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (Nagaru Tanigawa/Yen Press again)
Kind of boring. The early stories are all better in the anime, though some later chapters are better, I’ve heard. Also the entire translation is written like this. I was going to make up something here about fansub translators not knowing how to write paragraphs, but I guess it’s light novel style after all. The anime episodes are better but are still boring.

The Summer of the Ubume (Natsuhiko Kyogoku/Vertical)
kransom told me to buy this before it came out here, and so I did. Unfortunately, not only is this a real novel, but it’s actually good and well-written, which left me totally unqualified to say anything about it. I will instead note that most people seem to have called it a “supernatural horror”, which it isn’t, and insist on comparing Kyogoku to nerdshoe authors like Neil Gaiman/Stephenson.
Personally, I thought the mystery solved through a very long history lecture at the end reminded me more of Umberto Eco, but there’s no reason to go around reducing things to comparisons like that. Just go read it, okay.

Kannagi v1/2
(I read the subtitles, you see.)
There wasn’t really enough plot to sustain this. The individual episodes were mostly good, but none of them actually led into each other at all, and you just had to pretend that the weird serious drama in episode 2 merited it suddenly coming back at the end of the show.
Maybe if the author had written more of the plot out it could’ve been interesting, since it was at least more leftist than Kamichu, but instead some completely different series about maid cafes got stuck in the middle. Yamakan’s director power somehow made this and Kanon watchable, but I end up regretting it afterwards…

Umineko no naku koro ni, episode 6
I can’t mention any plot details until it’s been translated, but after reading it I don’t think I got any clearer picture of the mystery. It looks like episode 7 will reveal a large part of that, so it’s just a little more waiting either way, but it made reading such a long episode seem a little pointless.
There were a few great scenes, but overall the whole thing is by design stuck until the actual end, and I think he’s just padding it out now. Watch out if you start reading it (e.g. if someone translates the prologue), because the first few scenes will just confuse you until you get to the end 15 chapters later.

I was going to write about the copy-bon I bought at C77, but then I realized that no one is actually interested in that. On the other hand, a small handful of people are interested in Garo, so I felt that it’d be a better use of my time to write up another year of Garo information! If you missed my post on Garo’s 1964 issues (I don’t blame you, it was almost 8 months ago), it can be found here. Once again, names will be in the format of Lastname Firstname, and individual stories in each issue will be listed as Author, “Story”. Also once again, many thanks go out to Shiraishi-san for allowing me to draw from his Garo index, though his site currently appears to be offline. I am fairly sure that the works listed under each month are not listed in the order which they appear in the magazine, but the order they appear in the table of contents on the back side of the front cover.

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After some twitter back-and-forths, I’ve decided to try to do a few posts where I introduce some of the stuff I picked up last Comic Market (C77), mostly just to prove to people that you can spend over $500 on interesting doujinshi and have basically none of it be pornographic. (Nozomu Tamaki pushed his ero book on me and who am I to deny that man a sale?)

Of course, to start off this series of posts, I’m going to basically mess up my entire theme by starting with a professionally published book from 2007. I did, however, purchase this book at C77, and it’s the closest one to my laptop, so I’m going to start with the first volume of Manga Ronso Boppatsu (マンガ論争勃発, “Manga Debate Eruption”, alternatively “The Manga Criticism War Erupts!”), authored and edited by Kaoru Nagayama, author of Eromanga Studies　(East Press), and the journalist Takashi Hiruma.

Manga Ronso Boppatsu is a collection of nearly fifty short (2-6 page) articles on a variety of topics, most of which center around a single expert or critic’s thoughts on the topic at hand. The authors of the book state that the idea behind the book is to listen to various positions on each of these hot topics, such as the globalization of manga, creators’ rights, and the limiting of free expression in manga, so that constructive discussion can start taking place rather than the mindless, polarized shouting matches that’re all too easy to fall into when debating these issues.

I ended up getting this book (and its sequel) thanks to a tip from Vertical’s Ed Chavez, who sent me off in the direction of the far-left corner of the Big Sight’s East-3 hall, where I found a rather large table staffed by just one guy, who I assume was one of the authors of the book. The placement of their booth was a bit odd to me, as it was down in one of the doujinshi-selling halls (as opposed to the upstairs industry hall), but up against the wall where non-doujinshi products like markers and corn dogs are sold.

This was actually a rather appropriate place to stick these guys, as while their book is released by a professional publisher (Micro Magazine), the subjects covered in the volume either deal directly with doujinshi events like Comiket, or are extremely relevant to the ideals embodied by these events themselves: Spreading manga culture and providing a space where individuals can distribute works of free expression. I’m not just making this stuff up, either–the Comic Market Preparation Committee and the National Doujinshi Event Liaison Group are both prominently given credit for cooperation right next to the authors.

I mentioned that Manga Ronso Boppatsu is the closest book to my laptop, and there’s actually a reason for that; it’s basically the only thing I’ve been turning to as of late when I feel like educating myself on manga. While I’m still working through it, the articles I’ve read so far are all very informative and provide thoughtful views on whatever topic is at hand. Of course, there is a trade-off to gathering the breadth of experts that the book jams into a little over 200 pages, and that is that a relative lack of depth in any given article. However, the articles are all excellent primers on their respective topics given by some of the most respected individuals in their fields. Since it’d be nearly impossible to give my thoughts on each individual article, I’m simply going to spend the rest of this post below the cut translating each article’s title and the primary individual consulted or interviewed (when applicable), and strongly suggest the volume (available for purchase at Amazon and bk1.jp, among other places) to anyone with an interest in a mix of solid journalism and on-the-ground, current commentary on the state of manga and doujinshi.

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Soranowoto is getting me to love anime again. Superficially, it looks like a less serious version of Haibane Renmei: a group of unrelated girls being sent to the countryside, in an abandoned stone building connected to a town (hell, the building looks a lot like Old Home), except with a little more moé fanservice than is really necessary. But there’s actually an immensely rich storyline going on underneath the surface, that breaks the characters out of their moé shells and gives them a deep meaning in Japanese history.
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, as chosen by 2ch and condensed into readable format by Kajisoku, who I don’t feel all too bad about stealing content from because affiliate blog lol

There were a whole lot of incidents I had no idea about, but first, the standard host of “incidents” that you’d expect in a thread like this:

• The first post is, of course, “Nagi-sama virginity incident” (quickly followed by “the ‘incident’ part was the people who posted in response to the manga, right?”)
• Electric Soldier Porygon incident
• episode 4 of Gurren-Lagann (lol)
• a pretty exhaustive list of Yashiganis (1, 2, 3, 4, Valanoir
• Asuna’s cremation in Negima!
• The existence of Tsuyokiss (or maybe it was all a dream…)
• The existence of the Idolm@ster anime
• The existence of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
• The existence of Buddha Saitan
• The ending of Kashimashi TV
• Endless Eight
• etc etc

Stuff like that makes up a good half of the thread or so. However, the other half is full of hilarious stuff that may have otherwise been lost to my poor memory and the straits of time!

• Red tinting on the Japanese Spirited Away DVD release (English article, image)
• TV Tokyo pushes back Inukami episode due to world table tennis championships running long, man who set his recorder to automatically tape Inukami during the normal time slot sends cremated remains to TV Tokyo in protest (article)
• Episode 26 of Animentary Ketsudan, a right-leaning 1971 historical anime series where the first 25 episodes are about important decisions made during World War II, becomes an episode about Kawakami Tetsuharu’s decisions as the manager of the Yomiuri Giants. Apparently the episode was originally going to be on the final days of the war, but mounting pressure by parent groups over the program’s politics lead to the change.
• Nippon TV, Tatsunoko Pro, and Kuri Ippei are sued by Katsukawa Katsushi over claims that they plagarized his character design in their show Doteraman, temporary pulling the show from the airwaves. (Katsukawa would later lose the suit)
• Incredible scheduling botch when TBS tries to push Ichigo Mashimaro ep 5 back by 5 minutes in order to air a special live news report on a hurricane. (youtube)
• Broadcasting error on 8/15/2007 leads to a 65-minute long frozen frame of Sanji’s eyebrow (One Piece) on one channel. Japanese
• The Musashimaru Tragedy
• Episode 17 of Samurai Troopers is accidentally broadcast in lieu of episode 18, forcing the production company to shorten the show from 40 episodes to 39.(image)
• The staff of the Prince of Tennis anime decided to make a staff doujinshi of the series and sell it at summer Comiket 2004, but are forced to give it away for free when the original author takes notice. (scans on nico)
• Spanish terrestrial broadcast TV channel “La Sexta” airs ero-anime Daiakuji without actually knowing what it is, causes general moral outrage
• The ending of Might Gaine, where the characters find out that the ultimate enemy is actually Takara and other toy companies. (No really, I’m not kidding)
• The opening credits of episode 11 of City Hunter 3, broadcast on Christmas Eve 1989, featured a one-frame flash of Aum Shinrikyo leader Asahara Shoko. This was apparently done as an production in-joke, as one-frame insertions like this are present in shows like Urusei Yatsura and Patlabor TV, and there was no backlash at the time. In 1993, Yomiuri TV asked them to remove this for later rebroadcasts as they were afraid that uncredited insertion of living people’s photographs might lead to a image rights issue. However, TBS would later attack Nippon TV over the original sequence during the heated weeks after the Aum sarin gas attacks, saying it was a subliminal message. (Image here, video footage of an indescribably bizarre cult-recruitment tool/Aum video game which features a clip from the video here.)
• Not in the thread, but related to the above 2 entries: The 6th show in the Yusha/Brave series, The Brave of Gold Goldran (Might Gaine was show #4), had a one-frame flash in the opening credits of the first 13 episodes where, in the background of a scene where the titular robot could be seen, the phrase “An anime that’s easy to make toys out of / by Sunrise” can be seen handwritten in the background. Oh, those crazy disgruntled Sunrise animators! You can catch it at around 1:12 of this video.

In the order I thought of them. Also these shows are all terrible, so please don’t watch them, except for Magipoka which was brilliant.

1. Samurai Gun.
2. RGB Adventure.
3. Renkin San-kyuu Magical? Poka~n.
4. That one show that was like Mai-HIME, but all the characters were gay men named after rocks.
5. That Hercule Poirot anime where the main character was a girl with a pet duck.

I was going to put Fantastic Children and Project Blue Earth SOS in there, but you guys all watched those, right?

For Christmas I received an iPod Touch. Not a lousy present by any means; it’s been wasting my time for the past 12 hours. I have determined that by far the most interesting thing to put on my iTouch are poorly translated anime games. Having devoted far too much of my short lifespan on this Earth to downloading and playing nonsensical games featuring brain damaged young women, I feel it is my duty to inform you, the reader, of what I have learned.
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I’m reposting this huge forum post I wrote here ’cause I thought it was pretty good.
Apparently these days everyone is looking at some guy’s chart instead. But I read it and his plot summaries are longer than the actual shows’ plots. What’s with that?
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