Failure for the day.
Mar. 28th, 2010 03:40 pmFrom here:
So here we are at Otome Road. Alright, it's more like Otome Cul-De-Sac. Or Otome Stoop. In any case it's a tiny little area.
How the hell did he manage to miss nearly eighty percent of Otome Road? Hint: It's waaaay bigger than just the Mandarake, the Animate, and the first of four (yes, four) K-Books shops.
More fail: I sort of wish I'd been taking video just so you could see the reactions we got. We were extremely out of place and clearly Did Not Belong. I wasn't kidding when I said the clientele was 100 percent female and looked upon us as usurpers. I'd feel bad about invading their bubble (not to mention taking photos in a clearly prohibited area), but hey, someone needs to soberly and seriously document these important social trends!
Failboat ahoy: Then there is this, THE WORLD'S MOST CROWDED AND CRAMPED ANIMATE STORE. It is wall-to-effing-wall teenagers and squealing girls in this joint. ABANDON ALL HOPE. [...] Alright so this is a crappy blurry photo in an area where photography was probably restricted but this gives you an idea of how crowded it was inside this place and it was like 8 solid floors like this. Hellacious.
Awesome. So you're agressively invading stores where you're clearly not welcome, taking photographs in areas where photography is clearly prohibited just so that you can post said photos on an anime news site and point and laugh at the silly fangirls and their freaky fetishes, then breathlessly gushing to your fanboy audience about how "hellacious" it was for you to have to spend time in a store filled with "squealing" (WTF has anybody EVER actually squealed inside an Animate?!) fangirls, but it's okay because you were doing it all in the same ofscience journalism!
The photography thing really pisses me off. Because clearly the need to take photographs pretty much solely for the purpose of pointing and laughing at them is far more important than, you know, respecting the rules of the store that you're visiting. Hello, white privilege!
And now let me repeat this part again: I sort of wish I'd been taking video just so you could see the reactions we got.
Journalism: UR DOIN IT WRONG.
(Countdown to "But it's okay because Zac snarks at male otaku too!" Please don't make me do Feminism 101 or Racism 101 in the comments here. Please please don't.)
Note: Outside of being, you know, a male, being a white person and shopping on Otome Road is a potential minefield of racism and white privilege. I'm saying this because I am a white person who loves to shop on Otome Road. But I know that there are certain stores where I'm not welcome as a foreigner, and hey, I have to fucking respect that. These are (for the most part) indie comic stores set up to cater to a very marginalized clientele - stores by women, for women, and spaces where women can express and explore all sorts of forbidden/marginalized/taboo aspects of sexuality - and these are NOT spaces where outsiders should barge in just because they feel like their curiosity, their journalism assignment, or their need to point and laugh is somehow more important than the fact that they are making Japanese women feel uncomfortable in their own space. Granted, there are the big megastores - like the Animate and the Mandarake that Zac visited - where foreign *women* are clearly welcome, provided that they don't comport themselves like assholes. (Men are another story, for obvious reasons. I mean, it's a porn shop for women! Men are not welcome - especially not if they're clearly there just to point and laugh! And to take photographs where they're not supposed to! Jesus!) But outside of the big megastores, most of Otome Road is composed of much smaller doujin stores - the type of little local stores where the owner knows the name of every customer and probably most of the artists who sell their books there, too - and it's a mixed bag whether those places welcome foreigners or not. As a foreigner, you have to respect the boundaries set within those spaces. As a man, you have to understand that there are definitely places where you're not going to be welcome, places like Otome Road. And if you decide to barge in anyway just so that you can take prohibited photographs and snark at the silly fangirls all in the name of ~*journalism~*, then congratulations, you're an asshole.
The fact that Zac apparently wasn't aware that he actually only saw a tiny portion of Otome Road pretty much confirms the journalism failure anyway.
So here we are at Otome Road. Alright, it's more like Otome Cul-De-Sac. Or Otome Stoop. In any case it's a tiny little area.
How the hell did he manage to miss nearly eighty percent of Otome Road? Hint: It's waaaay bigger than just the Mandarake, the Animate, and the first of four (yes, four) K-Books shops.
More fail: I sort of wish I'd been taking video just so you could see the reactions we got. We were extremely out of place and clearly Did Not Belong. I wasn't kidding when I said the clientele was 100 percent female and looked upon us as usurpers. I'd feel bad about invading their bubble (not to mention taking photos in a clearly prohibited area), but hey, someone needs to soberly and seriously document these important social trends!
Failboat ahoy: Then there is this, THE WORLD'S MOST CROWDED AND CRAMPED ANIMATE STORE. It is wall-to-effing-wall teenagers and squealing girls in this joint. ABANDON ALL HOPE. [...] Alright so this is a crappy blurry photo in an area where photography was probably restricted but this gives you an idea of how crowded it was inside this place and it was like 8 solid floors like this. Hellacious.
Awesome. So you're agressively invading stores where you're clearly not welcome, taking photographs in areas where photography is clearly prohibited just so that you can post said photos on an anime news site and point and laugh at the silly fangirls and their freaky fetishes, then breathlessly gushing to your fanboy audience about how "hellacious" it was for you to have to spend time in a store filled with "squealing" (WTF has anybody EVER actually squealed inside an Animate?!) fangirls, but it's okay because you were doing it all in the same of
The photography thing really pisses me off. Because clearly the need to take photographs pretty much solely for the purpose of pointing and laughing at them is far more important than, you know, respecting the rules of the store that you're visiting. Hello, white privilege!
And now let me repeat this part again: I sort of wish I'd been taking video just so you could see the reactions we got.
Journalism: UR DOIN IT WRONG.
(Countdown to "But it's okay because Zac snarks at male otaku too!" Please don't make me do Feminism 101 or Racism 101 in the comments here. Please please don't.)
Note: Outside of being, you know, a male, being a white person and shopping on Otome Road is a potential minefield of racism and white privilege. I'm saying this because I am a white person who loves to shop on Otome Road. But I know that there are certain stores where I'm not welcome as a foreigner, and hey, I have to fucking respect that. These are (for the most part) indie comic stores set up to cater to a very marginalized clientele - stores by women, for women, and spaces where women can express and explore all sorts of forbidden/marginalized/taboo aspects of sexuality - and these are NOT spaces where outsiders should barge in just because they feel like their curiosity, their journalism assignment, or their need to point and laugh is somehow more important than the fact that they are making Japanese women feel uncomfortable in their own space. Granted, there are the big megastores - like the Animate and the Mandarake that Zac visited - where foreign *women* are clearly welcome, provided that they don't comport themselves like assholes. (Men are another story, for obvious reasons. I mean, it's a porn shop for women! Men are not welcome - especially not if they're clearly there just to point and laugh! And to take photographs where they're not supposed to! Jesus!) But outside of the big megastores, most of Otome Road is composed of much smaller doujin stores - the type of little local stores where the owner knows the name of every customer and probably most of the artists who sell their books there, too - and it's a mixed bag whether those places welcome foreigners or not. As a foreigner, you have to respect the boundaries set within those spaces. As a man, you have to understand that there are definitely places where you're not going to be welcome, places like Otome Road. And if you decide to barge in anyway just so that you can take prohibited photographs and snark at the silly fangirls all in the name of ~*journalism~*, then congratulations, you're an asshole.
The fact that Zac apparently wasn't aware that he actually only saw a tiny portion of Otome Road pretty much confirms the journalism failure anyway.
