Danny Choo a man I'm extremely jealous of posted a short article concerning THE GREATEST PM THAT EVER EXISTED! (I know I know, he's sexist, a nationalist, friends with "W", and won't recognize his son Yoshinaga Miyamoto, but somehow all is forgiven)
In this article on Koizumi's involvement with the production of the new Ultraman movie, Danny had this to say about the issue of adult interests in anime.
Being the type of person that I am, I am often questioned on my abnormal behavior and tastes. I am often quietly offended at other people's concept of what is standard. I once saw a presentation by one of my favorite comicbook writers Marjane Satrapi who commented up until a few years ago she thought that comics were only for children and addled minded adults. It wasn't until she discovered the French "New Wave" comic style in which she realized that this was a uniquely powerful form of literature. For me that is how I normalize my love of comics and cartoons. If being a nerd was a counter culture movement, my call to arms would be "medium not genre". In my experience many who are not fans seems to think that all comics and cartoons have the same themes and any selection of such are representative of the whole. As if you could judge all animation on loonytoons, or all comics on Batman. Not to say that either are bad, but they do not account for all there is to be had in the world. I have experienced too many great works using this medium to make any generalizations on it's credibility. There are plenty of bad stuff out there in all things. Much like there are bad country songs and good country songs, bad vampire novels and good vampire novels, bad landscape oil paintings and good landscape oil paintings. We tend to be very quick to judge others on their interests based on our limited experience of that interests. Perhaps there is nothing unique to nerds about this, but it is interesting to note the social stigma commonly associated with it.
Its things like this which many folks who are not into Japanese culture don't understand and I get asked a lot in interviews by reporters - things like:-Why do grown Japanese men still watch anime - I used to watch cartoons as a kid but only until I was 12.Well for a start, folks like this interpret the world on what they consider to be standards that they set themselves. Just because they "don't", they expect others "to not" and anybody who "does" is strange by their definition. What surprises me is that some reporters who should have open minds (to enable them to convey an unbiased message) have the most narrowest minds one can possibly imagine.
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