08-31-2005, 09:41 AM
I don't think I necessarily like the implication that just because we enjoy a bit of pornography, we're immediately "Immoral". I'll grant you that most of my church would probably disagree, but it's mildly safer for me to be here looking at porno instead of out trying to get laid with every chick I see.
The problem is, however, the 'mother' laws -- the ones that 'protect' the children (or worse, protect the adults) or which try to legislate moral behaviour. Honestly, we need a very old-fashioned form of population control, and it doesn't require the government to select people to die or anything. It' a very simple thing that would help fight overpopulation, but that's a topic for another thread. This is about anime and censorship, and so let's talk.
There are two problems in the distribution of anime in the United States, and both are problems of perception. I'd like to address each of those perception problems, but if you don't care, skip the rest of this post.
(1) The first perception problem is a traditional American view that "cartoons are for kids". We encounter this same problem with "video games" and "comic books", though less so now with the latter than in the past. However, Japan has established animation as such a large art form that if you look at enough "anime" you will probably find something that is to your tastes and your level of maturity. In spite of this, mny video stores lump all anime together, and some even place it all in the "children's videos" section. This is directly related to misconception number 2.
(2) All Japanese cartoons are porno. This tends to come up when some unassuming parent rents a vdeo for their kid because it was "a cartoon" and they didn't realize it contained sexual content.
Now honestly, neither of these is true. But that won't stop some people from believing one or the other. America only has a few animated series targeted speciically at adults, and most of those are on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] block. Shows like Stroker and Hoop, Venture Brothers, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force are clearly not meant for little Timmy -- "unless you want to warp his fragile little mind". It's good to have a block that will air these anime aimed at an adience other than "little kids", but CN has their own share of problems...
Take, for example, Naruto. Premiering on Toonami a week from this coming Saturday (September 10, for those not checking the date of this post), Naruto is actually a drastically more violent show, in my opinion, than DragonBall Z, which it is more or less taking the mantle of. I feel Naruto would be better (in America) uncut on the [adult swim] block than cut to a "teen-friendly" (ie: 13-16 'young teen') version. But I'll still watch it to see how they do, and pray they release uncut DVDs from the get-go. Well, we'll see...
The problem is, however, the 'mother' laws -- the ones that 'protect' the children (or worse, protect the adults) or which try to legislate moral behaviour. Honestly, we need a very old-fashioned form of population control, and it doesn't require the government to select people to die or anything. It' a very simple thing that would help fight overpopulation, but that's a topic for another thread. This is about anime and censorship, and so let's talk.
There are two problems in the distribution of anime in the United States, and both are problems of perception. I'd like to address each of those perception problems, but if you don't care, skip the rest of this post.
(1) The first perception problem is a traditional American view that "cartoons are for kids". We encounter this same problem with "video games" and "comic books", though less so now with the latter than in the past. However, Japan has established animation as such a large art form that if you look at enough "anime" you will probably find something that is to your tastes and your level of maturity. In spite of this, mny video stores lump all anime together, and some even place it all in the "children's videos" section. This is directly related to misconception number 2.
(2) All Japanese cartoons are porno. This tends to come up when some unassuming parent rents a vdeo for their kid because it was "a cartoon" and they didn't realize it contained sexual content.
Now honestly, neither of these is true. But that won't stop some people from believing one or the other. America only has a few animated series targeted speciically at adults, and most of those are on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] block. Shows like Stroker and Hoop, Venture Brothers, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force are clearly not meant for little Timmy -- "unless you want to warp his fragile little mind". It's good to have a block that will air these anime aimed at an adience other than "little kids", but CN has their own share of problems...
Take, for example, Naruto. Premiering on Toonami a week from this coming Saturday (September 10, for those not checking the date of this post), Naruto is actually a drastically more violent show, in my opinion, than DragonBall Z, which it is more or less taking the mantle of. I feel Naruto would be better (in America) uncut on the [adult swim] block than cut to a "teen-friendly" (ie: 13-16 'young teen') version. But I'll still watch it to see how they do, and pray they release uncut DVDs from the get-go. Well, we'll see...