WELCOME TO CRINGETOBER!
I wanted to post the prompt list a month in advance so people have time to work on it :)
There are no hard rules; it's just a fun art exercise to draw things that are considered "cringe" by popular culture. Don't stress if you miss a day!!
Even if you don't participate, it would mean the world to me if you just shared the prompt list because it took me a while to make it lol.
I hope you have fun with it!!!
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I do sort of wish western anime fans would analyze anime and manga from a framework of japanese historical and cultural context. Specifically a lot of works from the 90s being influenced by the general aimlessness and ennui that a lot of people were experiencing due to the burst in the bubble economy and the national trauma caused by the sarin terrorist attack. I think in interacting with media that’s not local to our sociocultural/sociopolitical sphere it’s easy to forget that it’s influenced and shaped by the same kinds of factors that influence media within our own cultural dome and there ends up being this baseline misalignment of perception between the causative elements of a narrative and viewer interpretation of those elements. It’s a form of death of the author that i think, in some measure, hinders our ability to fully understand/come to terms with creator intent and the full scope of a work’s merits
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We (somewhat rightly) mock the 2000's era fansub translation notes for their otaku fixations and privileging of trivia over the media, but they should be understood as serving their purpose for a bit of a different era in the anime fandom. Take this classic:
Like, its so obvious, right? Just say "pervert", you don't need the note! Which is true, for like a 'normie' audience member who just wants to watch A TV Show - but no one watching, uh *quick google* "Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne" in 1999 is that person. The audience is weebs, and for them the fact that show is Japanese is a huge selling point. They want it to feel as 'anime' as possible; and in the west language was one of the core signifiers of anime-ness. 2004 con-goers calling their friends "-kun" and throwing in "nani?" into conversations was the way this was done, and alongside that a lexicon of western anime fandom terminology was born. Seeing "ecchi" on the screen is, to this person, a better viewing experience - it enhances their connection to otaku identity the show is providing, and reinforces their shared cultural lexicon (Ecchi is now a term one 'expects' anime fans to know - a truth that translator notes like this simultaneously created and reflected).
But of course your audiences have different levels of otaku-dom, and so you can't just say 'ecchi' and call it a day - so for those who are only Level 2 on their anime journey, you give them a translation note. Most of the translation notes of the era are like this - terms the fansubber thought the audience might know well enough that they would understand it and want that pure Japanese cultural experience, but that not all of them would know, so you have to hedge. The Lucky Star one I posted is a great example of that:
Its Lucky Star, the otaku-crown of anime! You desperately want the core text to preserve as much anime vocab as possible, to give off that feeling, but you can't assume everyone knows what a GALGE is - doing both is the only way to solve that dilemma.
This is often a good guideline when looking at old memetically bad fansubs by the way:
This isn't real, no fansub had this - it was a meme that was posted on a wiki forum in 2007. Which makes sense, right? "Plan" isn't a Japanese cultural or otaku term, so there is no reason not to translate it, it doesn't deepen the ~otaku connection~.
Which, I know, I'm explaining the joke right now, but over time I think many have grown to believe that this (and others like it) is a real fansub, and that these sort of arbitrary untranslations just peppered fansub works of the time? It happened, sure, but they would be equally mocked back then as missteps - or were jokes themselves. Some groups even had a reputation for inserting jokes into their works, imo Commie Subs was most notable for this; part of the competitive & casual environment of the time. But they weren't serious, they are not examples of "bad fansubs" in the same way.
This all faded for a bunch of reasons - primarily that the market for anime expanded dramatically. First, that lead to professionally released translations by centralized agencies that had universal standards for their subs and accountability to the original creators of the show. Second, the far larger audience is far less invested in anime-as-identity; they like it, but its not special the way its special when you are a bullied internet recluse in 2004. They just want to watch the show, and would find "caring" about translation nuances to be cringe. And since these centralized agencies release their product infinitely faster and more accessibly than fansubs ever did, their copies now dominate the space (including being the versions ripped to all illegal streaming sites), so fansubs died.
Though not totally - a lot of those fansub groups are still around! Commie Subs is still kicking for example. They either do the weird nuance stuff, or fansub unreleased-in-the-west old or niche anime, or even have pivoted to non-anime Japanese content that never gets international release. But they used to be the taste-makers of the community; now they are the fringe devotees in a culture that has moved beyond them. So fansubs remain something of a joke of the 90's and 2000's in the eyes of the anime culture of today, in a way that maybe they don't deserve.
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pulling the pin on this grenade of a meme and sprinting for the nearest shelter
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Hey uh I just found this out and I'm FURIOUS but miami zoo has a kiwi bird. Which is fine if they were doing what we do here and keeping it in a darkened enclosure with clear notices to be quiet and not bang on the glass. But instead this shy, solitary nocturnal bird is being kept in broad daylight and people are being allowed to pet it. NZ twitter is out for blood right now. https://twitter.com/zoomiami/status/1637864741954637824
…fucking yikes.
The kiwi I’ve seen in other AZA zoos have been kept according to the practices you describe: dark exhibit on a flipped light cycle, in a signed quiet area. What it looks like Zoo Miami is doing is… not good.
Here’s the link to their tweet with a video about the encounter (so it’ll embed):
The video shows a kiwi out of its exhibit: on a table in what looks like a back room with bright overhead fluorescent lighting. The kiwi has no room to move around and no place to hide as people pet it and reach around it to take selfies.
What do you pay to bother the kiwi four days a week - a species which in NZ is apparently illegal to touch without permission from the Department of Conservation? $25.
Obviously it just started and I don’t know anything more about it than what’s online, but even so, this is such a bad look for an AZA zoo, holy shit. I know a bunch of new ambassador animal rules just got promulgated… I wonder if this meets them. I’ll have to go do some reading. Also, USDA is now promulgating new bird rules (it didn’t regulate birds until just recently, only mammals) so this will also have to pass their muster soon.
The guy who runs Miami’s PR, and manages the animal media like the birth of their first kiwi chick in 2019, is known for big media stunts. I’m not surprised by this but I don’t think it’s going to go over well. There’s a lot of pressure on zoos to offer new encounters and programs to help make up for inflation and pandemic losses but this not how to do it.
I’d honestly suggest New Zealanders who are upset about this contact Zoo Miami formally (more than just on twitter) using the contact form on their website, and maybe even the AZA to express concerns about this program animal’s welfare - as well as the lack of cultural awareness at one of their accredited facilities.
Edited to add: a statement from Zoo Miami is supposed to be forthcoming tomorrow. I’ll update once we have it.
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Just a small detail that I wanted to highlight from Netflix’s One Piece. Even though this is clearly a Western production of a Japanese series, as you can tell from the more Hollywood-ish dialogue and action, the series isn’t completely divorced from its Japanese roots. For example, in the first episode, you can clearly tell Koby and Luffy are eating with chopsticks. And the little girl serves chocolate onigiri to Zoro.
It feels like the reverse of how anime used to be treated in the early 2000s. Remember when Pokémon had to change the name of the food to stuff like donuts and pizza? Now we have a Western show that’s based on an anime, and they’re making sure not to erase the Japanese influence in the series.
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Oh this is a pretty decent Guardian article
“ Even within the dictates of industry realities – it helps to have a star if you’re going to sell the public on a new movie release – there’s an art to pairing a part with the right personality. Think of James Woods as the hotheaded hell-deity Hades in Hercules, steering his unmistakable motormouth toward a schmoozier, lounge singer-type register. Without stretching too far outside himself, he demonstrates an understanding of the cardinal rule that voice acting can’t simply be acting without the visual component, that facial expressions and body language must be conveyed through the melodies they impose on each sentence. We’ve got a whole professional class of experts who have spent their whole lives getting really good at this; they’re called professional voice actors, and these days, they’re just worried about making rent.“
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I'm finally done
The 3.74 meter reticulated python is finally finished, I am extremely proud, I feel like a peacock
There were probably more than a thousand pieces and I still have a 2.5 meter burmese degreasing and two other snakes in the freezer waiting to be cleaned and articulated
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