I hope all my American readers had a great Thanksgiving, and everyone everywhere else had a a great Thursday. I haven’t been online as much this week, so enjoy a short edition of Otaku Links:
- My anime reviews for the week are live on Anime News Network! Why Onoda is the ultimate Midousuji apologist on Yowamushi Pedal, the joy and sorrow of Gyanko on Gundam Build Fighters Try, and times it really pays to have a significant other you can count on in Denki-gai.
- Like many otaku, I have a dream of someday living in Japan. But when Japan isn’t like your idealized vision of it, how do you cope? Tofugu has written up some tips for dealing with culture shock in Japan.
- A Haikyu! animator got fired from Production IG for tweeting her own erotic drawings of the characters on the show. That was super unprofessional of her, but I bet a lot of fujoshi can sympathize with her plight.
- Crunchyroll sadly isn’t doing its epic 50% off deal this Black Friday, but Right Stuf has gone crazy with deals up to 80 and even 90% off! Click here to shop Right Stuf using my affiliate link, and I will make a small commission.
- This week’s Answerman column on Anime News Network addresses a fan who really hates Vic Mignogna and wants to boycott Free! because of it. Answerman explains why this really just will penalize everyone at Funimation.
- Crunchyroll subscribers horrified to discover they are supporting the anime industry. Anime Maru is funnier than the Onion.
Illustration by Zain on Pixiv
6 Comments.
Wait a minute… I went from monthly to annual on Crunchyroll last year with the Black Friday deal. That means I must be up for a renewal. Argh. Also, the crazy Funimation deal from earlier this year just expired, so now I’m month-to-month there. Don’t know if I’ll stay or just revert to free-with-ads. Maybe I’ll finish Haibane Renmei first.
Oh no! NO!!!!!! I was so looking forward to saving money by pre-paying for a year of Crunchyroll. I was so happy I did that last year thanks to you letting your readers know of it. Not to mention I know I’ll want the next year. Crunchyroll has been great for me, and I seriously love that it got me away from pirating airing series. I’m so happy to pay for the right to view them.
The only saving grace from my pirate days is that ones I like go onto my to buy list and I’m whittling that down as time goes by.
*dissapointed sigh*
But there are series I could never wait the extra week for and I loathe ads, so premium member month by month I shall remain.
That post on culture shock is pretty good. It can be hard to look at Japan without rose colored glasses for otaku. Japan is just as problematic and messed up as any other industrialized nation. There are 3 books written by American authors that offer a view (if sometimes overly pessimistic) of the more realistic and sometimes less than colorful side of Japan.
Dogs and Demons by Alex Kerr
Speedtribes by Karl Taro
Shutting out the Sun by Michael Zielenziger
The last time I was in Japan a few years ago I was taking the train from Tokyo to my friends house, looked around and the idea popped into my head that everyone on the train looked absolutely miserable. I had seen this atmosphere before but it hit me really hard and made me think that most people in Japan were miserable. The rest of the trip I was just focused on getting home and was pushing away my regret for not moving there earlier in my life. After I got home I stopped watching anime and stopped studying Japanese and Japan in general. Sounds like I had experienced culture shock…and Ive been visiting the country since 1998.
@disqus_kVvzChmZjW:disqus, thanks for such a helpful reading list! I’ll have to check these out.
The female animator was also an animators for kuroko no basket and she did that cause she wanted to work on haikyu full time instead of kuroko
@disqus_eiXeBDMLz7:disqus interesting, is there an article where I can read more?