日本鬼子 (ri ben gui zi) is a common disparaging term in China for Japanese people, dating back to the Sino-Japanese War(s). After the recent Diaoyu/Senkaku geo-political drama, the term has seen a resurgence in popularity in China, where the anti-Japanese movement comes back in fashion every so often.

Some creative Japanese folks noticed that 日本鬼子 can easily be parsed as a female Japanese name “Hinomoto Oniko” and the moé-fication project began.

A Japanese blog (that has since been made private) translated some responses obtained from Chinese netizens. Most of the reactions can be summarized as, “What is this I don’t even-” but one guy calmly said, “Please give her long straight black hair.”

More pics on Itai-News and this Chinese blog. More discussions on Slashdot JP. There’s also a YouTube video compilation of the images. I won’t be surprised if Oniko doujinshi start popping up in the Winter Comiket.

Anime otaku: helping to realize world peace one politically-inappropriate personification at a time. Personally, as a Nanjing-born Chinese, I think this is awesome.

I recently started watching Kannagi after reading about the 2ch shitstorm over the main female lead’s alleged past sexual experience. You can read more about this dorama over at Sankaku Complex. The gist of the matter is that Nagi may or may not be Negi in disguise a virgin because she apparently has an ex-boyfriend! Also, she’s not even human so it reminds to be determined if the concepts of virginity and copulation even apply to her. In any case, this revelation in the manga’s plot development led to a firestorm of otaku rage and book tearing.

Oh, the humanity.

When I was watching the first episode of Kannagi, I thought it was a pretty average show with some marginally interesting directing. The バラバラ殺神事件 sequence caught me by surprise and I actually laughed out loud, so all in all the show was actually surprisingly good and held its ground better than most love comedies founded on the age-old premise of having a poor sob’s life invaded by an overbearing sometimes-magical girl. (Toradora on the other hand made me want to fall asleep.)

I’m guessing there are many people who agree with me, because Kannagi seems pretty popular. (Then again, Naruto and Gundam 00 are popular, so perhaps that’s not a clear indication of intent.)

If Nagi weren’t a virgin, none of that would change. The jokes would still be funny, the Earth would still spin, and fujoshi would still write Sasuke x Naruto fan fictions. But of course this is all hypothetical talk since:

1. The manga hasn’t actually revealed anything beyond the existence of an ex-boyfriend.
2. The question of whether forest gods, of whom Nagi is one, can have “virginity” still hangs in the balance.
3. Nagi is a fictional character.

I guess you can tell which side of this issue I stand on. But what I really wanted to talk about is something else that’s being demonstrated by this incident.

As anime fans, particularly foreign ones, we like to claim that anime is made for adults, that it is a diverse medium of creative expression, and that it is not “just cartoons”. These are not lies — it is certainly a fact that many anime titles being made today are not targeted at children — but they are only partial truths.

Are most anime titles made for adults? I don’t think so. If the fan base of Kannagi were adults, then Nagi’s virginity wouldn’t have been an issue, just as for example the virginity of the characters featured in a novel written for adults would be a non-issue. I would, however, expect a similar backlash if Hermione turned out to be engaged in under-age hanky panky, because it’s the typical reaction from the kind of fans Harry Potter attracts. This means that Kannagi, along with a great deal of popular anime titles, is closer to Harry Potter than Haruki Murakami.

How dare she act like a real girl!?

The truth is that Kannagi, like most anime being churned out today, is not targeted at just any adult, but specifically grown men with underdeveloped social faculty. I am not making an assertion about everyone who loves otaku-oriented titles, since I myself find Kannagi and certain similar titles to be pretty entertaining, but I am addressing the fact that these somewhat niche titles thrive financially thanks primarily to a dedicated social class of unmarried Japanese salarymen, a significant portion of whom has an altogether unrealistic expectation of women. That expectation manifests itself in anime due to both its prevalence within the subculture that includes the creators, and its commercial usefulness as a tool for boosting sales.

On hindsight and in view of such a reality, it was a huge mistake for the mangaka of Kannagi to exercise a bit of harmless creative freedom in introducing this plot development. The truth is that manga and anime are seldom the empty canvass we imagine them to be, and fan expectations tend to run higher than in most other forms of storytelling. The fandom simply doesn’t want to see realism featured in a character whom they had thought would be a typical undefiled anime idol.

It’s a shame too, because I personally feel that such little bits of realism add character and depth to an otherwise flat (literally and figuratively) and often self-conforming medium of entertainment.

Forest god and all, how do people even know she’s anatomically female?

I suppose it’s the same old tragic tale of the self-selecting vicious cycle: because anime titles that try to take the high road of matured storytelling don’t do very well commercially, the way to make a living in the industry is to invest in cookie-cutter otaku baits, and this in turn drives away from the genre any potential consumer who seeks higher-order gratifications.

It’s a lot like election campaigns really. We all like to criticize negative campaigners for “taking the low road”, and yet attack ads work remarkably well in getting votes. Perhaps anime is in need of its own Barack Obama.

The article focuses on DVD sales in particular, which traditionally does quite well in Japan. It also makes some comparisons to overseas markets such as North America and briefly mentions Singapore.

Surprisingly, opinions voiced in the discussion thread at 2ch (as reported by Itai News) were actually very critical of the industry, particularly over the high cost of R2 anime DVDs. I find this interesting because 2ch is generally full of right-wing xenophobic nationalists, so I was expecting them to jump at this chance to blame foreign pirates for destroying the livelihoods of Japanese studios.

[ Anime! Anime! via Itai News ]

Some of the points covered by the original article:

• 2007 was a calm year for the anime industry with a marked absence of new IPOs and mergers and acquisitions compared to previous years.
• Anime series are making less money and prime-time slots receive lower viewership.
• The worst performing sector is DVD sales. Although as a whole it is stable, sales of individual titles have gone down.
• There is still no sense of immediate danger as compared to market collapses overseas.
• Briefly mentions Geneon USA’s collapse and the Odex Incident in Singapore.
• Attributes the problems faced overseas to the development of digital fansubbing since the turn of the millennium.
• Online file-sharing did not catch on among anime fans in Japan initially, allegedly due to their more cautious attitudes towards the net. (Yeah right.)
• However, it is gaining popularity now and Japanese fans are approaching the state of the English fansubbing community in 2000.
• Fansubs used to serve as promotion for DVDs but now foreign viewers are contented with just the digital rip.
• It is very likely that Japan’s anime DVD market will eventually go the same path as younger Japanese people grow used to file-sharing technology.
• Online distribution is an important growth area and many companies, such as Bandai and Toei, are attempting it.
• However, online distribution can only produce extra income for companies with huge collections of past works and does not earn enough to substain new on-going titles.

Oh no! Anime is doomed! Anyway the article is pretty slanted towards the traditional industry view of the whole fansub debate, a stance which Anime! Anime! has consistently maintained. Perhaps this is because they have access to insider information, or perhaps this is seen as the politically-correct interpretation. (Which is how the mainstream media do it.) Either way, there’s probably some truth in there but, as a bottom-level consumer, I can’t really say that I sympathize when industries whine about changing paradigms.

I think it’s about time people realized that anime is, and probably forever will be, a highly niche market. The projected growth is just unsustainable and the whole foreign market was one huge bubble waiting to burst in the first place. Everyone wanted a piece of the action because anime was the next coolest thing, but a lot of it turned out to be hot air.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Meanwhile, here are some general comments that were expressed by 2ch posters in response to the article:

• Anime DVDs cost too much, especially when compared to regular DVDs.
• There are tons of crappy titles not worth paying for.
• HD broadcasting means that DVDs are actually of worse quality than illegal rips.
• Just switch to online distribution.
• DVDs not worth buying because anime has no rewatch value.
• Buying DVD is troublesome.
• Won’t buy without watching.

Most of it is similar to what you would find on most English forums, but I think that the most important points raised are that HD broadcasting looks better than DVD and that anime DVDs in Japan are seriously overpriced.

When you take into account of the fact that DVDs actually look worse than current TV broadcasts despite costing an exorbitant amount of yen better spent elsewhere, I think the sluggish sales can easily be seen as the slow death of a format past its prime instead of the manifesting effects of increased file-sharing. In the first place, Japanese fans have always been able to record and watch whatever they want for free, so I really don’t see how the spread of P2P can have as much effect there as compared to foreign markets such as North America, where many titles are released direct to video.

Oh well. Whatever. I don’t give a damn any more. In fact, I hope the industry will get rid of some extra baggage (GONZO in particular) and down-size.

GONZO ruined one of my favourite manga series ever. Death to the anime industry!

Image shamelessly stolen from Stippy.com

This is a particularly unpleasant development in my opinion, not because I am a strong advocate of individual privacy (I am not), but because it really brings out the uglier, nationalistic, racist and ignorant side of Japan.

As of today, all foreigners entering Japan above the age of 16 have to have their fingerprints and photos taken or face immediate deportation. The interesting thing is that fingerprinting a Japanese citizen is specifically prohibited by law unless the individual is suspected of having committed a crime.

Supposedly this is done to fight terrorism, but can you really think of any instance of a terrorist attack in Japan that was executed by foreigners? The high profile sarin gas attack was perpetuated by the Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult. Japan’s infamously closed society already makes it next to impossible for any Islamic fundamentalist groups to operate there with any success, so this new measure is clearly an overkill in fighting terrorism.

Apparently, the fact that a high-ranking Japanese official claims to have friends in al-Qaeda who managed to enter Japan with various passports is enough justification for tighter immigration measures. This would have been just a really terrible joke if it were not actually true.

The reality is that all this talk about terrorism is just for the foreign media. The real reason for this measure is because foreigners are perceived as the cause of crimes and social problems in Japan. This racist attitude is so pervasive in right-leaning media outlets that it legitimizes itself and influences the thinking of people in a way that is not immediately apparent and very, very sinister. For example, magazines supposedly detailing the criminal acts of foreigners can find shelf space in regular convenient stores.

Hive of Villainy

One look at Itai News’ article on the latest fingerprinting scheme gives you a glimpse into the mindset of xenophobic Japanese who have probably never interacted with a foreigner in their lives. Most of the comments are along the lines of:

• Japan needs to maintain its good public safety records
• Most crimes are committed by foreigners
• Only criminals would complain about being fingerprinted
• America is doing it too

Itai News does coverage on the latest hot topics on 2ch, so you can say that it’s not that reflective of mainstream Japan. But still, it’s mind-boggling just how ignorant some people can get when they refuse to see beyond their immediate surroundings.

Discrimination

In Japan, foreigners can be stopped for questioning for the “crime” of riding a bike. Bicycle theft is a very common offence and foreigners are likely to be criminals, right? Police officers are also known to randomly stop foreigners to ask for identification and detaining people who do not have the proper papers with them. How do they tell that you are a foreigner? By looks of course! Permanent residents, naturalized citizens and Japan-born citizens with foreign parents are thus screwed both ways. Not only do they pay taxes, they still get treated as foreigners. Of course, there are the ever-infamous no pets no gaijin signs.

Once again, it seems that my post has become too tangential. Let’s go back to fingerprinting.

Fingerprinting can be good

As mentioned, I am not a huge fan of over-emphasizing on individual freedoms. I think that a nationwide fingerprint database can probably do wonders for crime-fighting, provided that the right instruments are put in place and they are properly scrutinized for potential abuse. For example, I won’t advocate such an implementation in a country suffering from rampant institutional corruption because it would just be another tool for mid-level bureaucrats to profit off.

But I think that if proper procedures are followed, there is really no harm in a central fingerprint database. It would certainly help solve a lot of serious crimes where fingerprints actually come into play. (I doubt that they get any prints to work with in the case of a bicycle theft.)

What I do have problem with is the current implementation. Why is the fingerprinting of Japanese citizens restricted by law? Clearly the existence of such a law implies that there is something unpleasant about being fingerprinted. And yet we have a bunch of racist Japanese net commentators saying “only criminals are afraid of getting fingerprinted”. Well, if that is true why not fingerprint everyone then? This is just pure discrimination, nothing more and nothing less.

We didn’t start this!

And the argument that the USA is already doing it is even more laughable. Firstly, it implies that foreigners “deserve” it for starting this whole thing. Well, newsflash! Not all foreigners are American! Moreover, I don’t think the US is that great an example to follow right now.

According to Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, the number of Japanese tourists travelling to the US each year dropped from 5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million in 2006 and the number of Britons travelling to the US decreased by 11% but increased everywhere else.

Declines in the number of tourists since 9/11 cost the US $100 billion in spendings and taxes. Overall, global travel is experiencing continuous healthy growth, except to the US. Why? I think the possibility of being anal probed at the customs may have something to do with it!

Clearly, today’s United States of America is a shitty example to follow as far as immigration policy is concerned. I don’t think Americans are any safer today than before 9/11, just a whole lot less free (and less rich thanks to the spiralling dollar). If al-Qaeda really hated freedom (and not years of being screwed over by America’s asinine foreign policies), then they have really succeeded in a big way. But I digress again.

To conclude…

I guess that in the end, getting fingerprinted isn’t that big of a deal. But what is disgusting is how discriminating against foreigners is taken as a given by so many Japanese, and how valid concerns like security are used to manipulate public opinions for such an insidious agenda. It’s the vile combination of ignorance and protectionism that paved the way to Star of David badges more than sixty years ago.

Fingerprint everyone or fingerprint no one!

Ultimately, I just hope that I don’t have to wait for an hour to enter Japan when I fly there next month. (More details about that at a later date.)