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[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

So yeah, the nukes were only special because of how fast and spectacular they were.  We had been hideously murdering thousands of people and ruining land for decades millennia since the beginning of the war.  It's kind of what happens in wars.

Fixed.
Admittedly, we didn't have quite as many impressive flashes and bangs back then, but we still found a way to fuck shit up.

[Puzzlemaker]

So, back on semi-topic, Deathworks, that was a really interesting post.

[Cthulhu]

Something from Japan I love:  Bushido Blade 2.  Awesome game, great job.

[Aqizzar]

Okay, this thread has already gone to just about every awful place it could.  Good job everyone.

All I have to say about Japanamania in the Western World is that, irrespective of anything about Orient produced stuff itself (remember that plenty of mangas and animes are actually Korean or other such), I get annoyed as shit with people who consciously or not go around insistent that anything from Orient is automatically a million times betar than anything not, just because.  And for me, this really does go all the way back to the ninja-crazy late 1980s, and has very rarely managed to subside.

[Virex]

And Japan, itself, is an interesting place.  They were initially very insular, holding off the influence of the Western world for decades...  And then we went and nuked them..

I could swear that *something* happened between those two events.

Not really. The Americans basically came sailing into Uraga Harbor in 1853, opened fire and demanded the Japanese to sign a treaty to open their trade centers to western traders.

[Cthulhu]

Here we go...

[Aqizzar]

And Japan, itself, is an interesting place.  They were initially very insular, holding off the influence of the Western world for decades...  And then we went and nuked them..

I could swear that *something* happened between those two events.

Not really. The Americans basically came sailing into Uraga Harbor in 1853, opened fire and demanded the Japanese to sign a treaty to open their trade centers to western traders.

Yes, absolutely nothing happened in or around Japan between 1853 and 1945.  Just insular cultural stagnation and foreign mercantilism.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

Okay, this thread has already gone to just about every awful place it could.  Good job everyone.

Actually, it has not yet gone to every awful place it could go. No one mentioned rorikon or tentacles yet......

All I have to say about Japanamania in the Western World is that, irrespective of anything about Orient produced stuff itself (remember that plenty of mangas and animes are actually Korean or other such),

A complicated statement. I, for one, am interested in exclusively Japanese material. Also note that besides the terms anime and manga being terms created in Japan, the various forms of manga were created as a derivative of Western comics by the Japanese Tezuka Osamu (compensating for his failure to become a film director and also expressing his admiration for Disney - I don't think he lived to see the Lion King scandal). It is correct that the genre has been copied by Chinese and Korean artists since then, but it was defined and is still dominated by Japan.

I get annoyed as shit with people who consciously or not go around insistent that anything from Orient is automatically a million times betar than anything not, just because.  And for me, this really does go all the way back to the ninja-crazy late 1980s, and has very rarely managed to subside.

That is something I have to agree with: As was pointed out before, there is a lot of junk in manga, anime, and Japanese culture, so blanket statements of fandom don't really do it. You really have to pick out an aspect you like and then say that you like all those things pertaining to that aspect.

Puzzlemaker: Thanks. Note, that I wrote it off my memory, so especially the dates could be a bit off.

Deathworks

P.S.: I think no one has answered my question about manga yet, so I will wait with that a little longer.

[smigenboger]

I can't speak for Pathos, so I won't, but I think what the point he was getting at wasn't specifically the Japanese and their kooky adventures, but the other countries who gawk over this stuff. Aside from a few metalheads, you don't get people saying "Gosh, I just love everything about Norway", and even they just like the music, not the country itself. Oddly, I'd like to know if countries feel this way about the US. During my trips around the world, I didn't see anyone go "Well golly gee those Americans are great. If only I could be as American as them".

[Deathworks]

Hi!

The US had actually been seen that way by many Germans. But then George Walker Bush came along and thoroughly tought us the error of our ways. Nowadays, the only country people really love are their only countries (just look at the elections in Holland (^_^;; ).

Deathworks

[Aqizzar]

During my trips around the world, I didn't see anyone go "Well golly gee those Americans are great. If only I could be as American as them".

That's because they already have to be, duh.  When you eat Big Macs and drink Coke and watch Baywatch (#1 satellite broadcast in Iran) everyday anyway, it never really crosses your mind to want to be more American.

[DJ]

The next aspect that is very interesting is the doujinshi culture: There is a very strong culture where amateurs produce entertainment products at high quality and sell it. As far as I know, such a culture has not been anywhere else, although the Japan-fandom has recently made it spread to Europe as well. Take, for example, Higurashi no naku koro ni, my favorite anime. Originally, it was a series of sound novels made by amateurs (actually even complete amateurs in as far as they were their first creations). Those sound novels were sold and were able to get turned into anime and get ported to other platforms on a professional level. And this is not such an unusual thing.... Where else do you have a culture that is so strongly artistically inclined?

San Francisco, or any other hippy-infested place. Virtually all hippies engage in some kind of artwork.

Oh, and the thing that bothers me with anime/manga/whatever is the art style. Outrageous recycling of frames, looooong freeze shots, exaggerated facial features (because it takes effort to draw expressions on more proportionate faces), lame haircuts, you name it.

[Nikov]

Hi!

Good point, Nikov, although we could argue for seven and a half threads about whether Hiroshima was really justified or justifiable or not - as with all moral questions, you can make a big debate about it, so let's not do that.

It is also noteworthy that Japan was, as far as I know, the only major player of World War II who had NOT participated in World War I, which already had kind of traumatized Europe and begun to knock at least a little bit of sense into them (obviously not enough as Hitler proved).

Deathworks

Not to continue moral questions or derail this conversation, but I do feel it my obligation to correct you on this point. Japan had joined the Allied powers in WWI and engaged in a series of naval and marine engagements against German bases in the region, including Tsingtao. Ever have the beer by that name? Its an old German brewery. As I understand Japan 'switched sides' in the Second World War because the Allies didn't formally recognize as many territorial gains as Japan would have liked, and Germany promised Japan a free hand in the Pacific and 'racial equality', which the Allies apparently refused to recognize in the Treaty of Versailles. Worthy of its own thread though.

[smigenboger]

The US also provoked Japan through economic reasons. I do believe they embargoed oil and scrap metals against Japan, while supporting China and other nearby places to curb it's expansion. From what I understand Japan needed to expand to help ease it's overcrowded population, and the US was stifling it's plans. Correct me if I'm wrong, I've been up for a while.

[Deathworks]

Hi!

San Francisco, or any other hippy-infested place. Virtually all hippies engage in some kind of artwork.

But I don't think you get it taken to such extremes as in Japan. You do know about the Comiket, right?

Oh, and the thing that bothers me with anime/manga/whatever is the art style. Outrageous recycling of frames, looooong freeze shots, exaggerated facial features (because it takes effort to draw expressions on more proportionate faces), lame haircuts, you name it.

Actually, those statements include a lot of things:
1. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. None of my comments are meant to claim that your personal feelings are incorrect about what is beautiful and what isn't.
2. As I pointed out before, what most people know is only a very filtered version of the media. To make matters worse, that information also completely ignores the historical developments of the genre:

The original shounen manga, while still simplified were actually rather realistic and looked very similar to the American comics at times. However, in the 90s, shounen manga began to copy the visual cues of the shoujo manga, which I personally see as evidence that the audience was frustrated with the low quality content of the shounen manga of that time and preferred the superior content of the shoujo manga, resulting in an initial effort of mimicry (initially, it seems, it was mostly superficial, i.e. the graphics, but by now, there has been also a strong assimilation in the actual content).

Since I do like the style of shoujo manga, I am not so versed with more realistic styles, but I think you can get an impression of what I mean when looking at the download shops, for instance ebook and their section Katana:

http://www.ebookjapan.jp/ebj/media/katana/index.asp

I think if you browse through the things you can see there, you can get a feel for my point.

Deathworks

EDIT: Nikov: Ah, okay, I stand corrected. However, we can agree that Japan had not really suffered from World War I as had Europe... As I said, history is not my major.

Aquizzar: Also note that Japan kind of went shopping through the world when they caught up the 200 years of development they had missed out. I really love how they initially wanted to use the French model for their military, but then switched over to the Prussian (I hope my memory is right on that one) one when Prussia beat up France (again). So, in a way, Japan became a mirror of the prejudices/general conceptions of the 19th century world, about which country was good at what.