A well-written editorial detailing why anime sucks and its fans should have their reproductive rights revoked (or something) has appeared, and it’s always fun for me to read these, because the people who write them know so little about anime.

For example, this quote: “…stuff like Dragonball Z is nothing more than a glorified cartoon about trading cards.” Now, I don’t defend DBZ. I’ve always thought it was a crappy show. But “about trading cards”? There IS a DBZ TCG, but at least the anime was based on a manga that was developed on its own, as opposed to, say, a series that was developed as a toy line first. Or, you know, another one. Or another one.

Moving along…he then says that anime fans always bring up Miyazaki as a Deus Ex Machina to close down any anti-anime arguments. But you know, I wouldn’t– I’d offer up Paprika, by Satoshi Kon, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

The writer finishes up by chastising us for having a Miyazaki collection and a copy of Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend and encourages us to “get out of the house and meet some real, normal people with hair and eyes in proper proportion to their heads.” Like guys who waste their time trying to prove that all anime fans are “social outcast Neo-Goth types”? I don’t think so.

But you know, for a guy who talks about how gleefully he bought the Animatrix, and who has actually watched enough Dragon Ball Z to know how bad it is, and actually knows of Urotsukidoji, and seems to have seen Akira and 3×3 Eyes as well…hey, wait a sec. You’re one of us!

ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ♥

Posted by gia in Commentary, General • Comments (13)

For those of you who feared for LiveJournal’s future after yet another incident, Firefox.org’s Melissa Wilson reports that the interests are back in place and LJ owner SUP has blamed the issue on a “glitch.” But that’s a pretty prudish glitch, don’t you think?

Users are still unhappy, however. Described– not wrongly –by Wilson as an “eccentric, cantankerous lot,” a group of them plan to perform an LJ strike on March 21st by simply not posting. I doubt it’ll do much, but since I’ll probably be taking part by accident, I figure I might as well pimp it a bit.

Posted by gia in Gossip, News, Western News • Comments (4)

Insanejournaler Stewardess reports that a number of interests have been removed from LJ’s “Most Popular Interests” list, which is supposed to be an accurate depiction of the ~100ish most popular things people put on their interest lists.

Given LiveJournal’s rough history with fandom lately, it’s not hard to believe. Not too long ago they removed tons of accounts that could have theoretically had child porn in them, including legitimate ones like a rape survivor’s comm, a comm for people reading Nabokov’s Lolita, and some yaoi and Harry Potter communities. Eventually they apologized and reinstated many of the accounts. Not long thereafter, they banned a user for some naughty Potter fanart, as if she was the only one creating any.

Among the removals: Sex, porn, and…fanfiction? Others that have vanished include smut, erotica, and yaoi. (Anime and manga both stayed, btw.) They also removed “girls” and “boys,” which I thought might have just been because they’re kind of silly things to put on a list of top interests, but then I saw that “women” and “men” are still there. Pedo panic maybe?

Now, you can still list the interests and have them be viewed on your profile, and you can still search for people with those interests, so it looks like it’s probably just a PR move to clean things up. But, uh-oh, LJ! “Incubus” is still on the list, and I bet a few people have added that who aren’t talking about the band, ya know? And if you leave “blood” on the list, won’t that just attract serial killers? Tsk tsk.

But it’s still kinda lame. I mean, yaoi I can maybe understand, but fanfiction? Gimme a break.

(Via, let’s see: Stewardess via Fandom Lounge via World Serpent.)

Posted by gia in Gossip, Misc, News • Comments (2)