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Failure for the day.
From 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.
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That still doesn't change anything that I wrote in my post. Whether he's doing it for the lulz or not, he's still being a sexist, privileged asshat. And he's still being paid to at least affect a veneer of actual journalism, which he pretty much failed spectacularly to do when he couldn't even get the size of Otome Road right.
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I think it's really unfortunate when somebody who actually gets to travel/work/write about anime for a living is so jaded and disrespectful of the whole culture (dare I say the whole country?)
Yes, this. SO MUCH THIS. This EXACTLY.
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So... many... Fujoshi! I'm surprised they didn't make you check your Y chromosome at the door. And they all look so "normal" too! Shocking! I never imagined Yaoi was that popular.
JCWTF
No, that was genuine surprise. I never figured the Yaoi market was that big; what's more -and this is what I think was most surprising to me- the women/girls all looked "normal." If you've been to any Con (anime, Star Trek, video games, comics, etc.) the female fans who all attend have or can have that "look" or air about them (not that the male fans are any better/more normal looking). I wasn't getting that vibe from the Otome photos.
Worse and worse. So these are Zac's fans, huh. Why am I not surprised.
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Sorry, was either that or rage about how he insulted toku. ^^
(deleted first post by accident)
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On the other hand, the cat cafe is adorable. I'd so be a regular.
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I gotta say this: if an American place made it clear that foreigners weren't welcome there, people would raise holy hell, and rightfully so. Why should the Japanese get a pass on this? To me, if you're going to claim white privilege on one, you gotta claim Japanese privilege in a similar if not identical circumstance.
To me this is the equivalent of a small comic book store giving differential treatment to dark-skinned females walking in. (yeah, a local shop does this.) Why is one different then the other?
Now, I'm not saying that you should be able to go in and mock or be disrespectful, but you should be able to shop there and not be made to feel uncomfortable. I'm not saying necessarily that I should be welcome there, but you and others with similar interests DEFINITELY should not be made to feel uncomfortable/unwelcome- since you have a genuine interest in the stuff, and know enough Japanese to understand what's going on.
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I gotta say this: if an American place made it clear that foreigners weren't welcome there, people would raise holy hell, and rightfully so. Why should the Japanese get a pass on this? To me, if you're going to claim white privilege on one, you gotta claim Japanese privilege in a similar if not identical circumstance.
First, It's not just a "place," it's a porn shop. It's a porn shop for women. It's a porn shop by women, for women, where all sorts of extremely taboo, forbidden, and marginalized expressions of sexuality are explored. Furthermore, it's a porn shop NOT for commercial products, but for self-published, indie, off-the-radar artists who sell almost exlusively illegal material. It's not just a porn shop, it's an artistic community. Do you understand how the context here is very, very different than, say, a McDonald's? Or Tokyo Disneyland? Or most other places in Japan?
Look, here's the 101 bit that I really didn't want to have to rehash, but here we are: Women are allowed to have spaces for themselves, especially spaces where they can explore and express their sexuality in a safe community, without the intrusion of men. Next, people of color are allowed to have spaces for themselves - especially, say, within an artistic community and when dealing with sexual expression - free from the intrusion of white people.
White people still have privilege within Japan. Tons of fucking privilege. White Americans especially are an incredibly privileged minority in Japan. I've written at length about white privilege in Japan before. If you are a white person in Japan, there is still a power imbalance between you and a Japanese person. There's a bigger power imbalance if you're a white person who wants access to an artistic, pornographic community of Japanese artists who do exclusively illegal, taboo, below-the-radar stuff. These people are marginalized and lacking power to begin with, and you as a white person intruding upon their safe space is still a no-no. It's even worse if you're a white dude, as opposed to a white woman.
Your average doujin shop on Otome Road is in no way comparable to an American comic book store. It's a totally, totally different context.
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This dude really is this sort of man that made me ... don't like the other gender. (and I'm sorry for saying this.)
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I know, right? I have eighth-grade students who could write a better article than that. In fact, most of them have.
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(Anonymous) 2010-03-29 02:42 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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I don't read this guy's stuff, but if I remember ANYTHING from Otome Road it's that these are not the kind of places that you take pictures in.
Yeah, no kidding. I mean, you know me and my obsessive addiction to photography, and boy do I understand the temptation to take pictures of weird/cool/awesome things inside doujin stores. But I never did, because I knew that it would have been super douchey of me to do so.
It's blatantly disrespectful, and shows supreme ignorance for the subject he's "documenting."
Exactly. Disrespectful and ignorant to the max.
This surprises me
Sorry if my English is like crap but as long as it is understandable... And I'm way better in reading English than speaking or writing it myself but this was a very burning question :p
Re: This surprises me
As for ANN, well... For the most part, their standards are a lot higher. They also have plenty of better writers working for the site. Unfortunately, however, Zac has been a part of the site for years and years, and he's gathered a fanbase of wannabe snarkers who support him, so that's why he's still a part of the site, I guess. God knows it's certainly not because of his non-existent journalism skillz.
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This is why I don't like a lot of men. I know there are good men out there, but this guy is a prime example of someone I'd deck if they even got near me. Gah!
However, I'm not quite sure what White Privilege means. Would you please be so kind so as to explain what it is? I have a feeling it's got something to do with racism. Is it like when you go to a non-Caucasian community and get treated better because you're white? I hope I haven't offended you. If I have, I'm really, really, really sorry.
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Is it like when you go to a non-Caucasian community and get treated better because you're white?
That's part of it, yes. Generally it means any advantage that you have because of your white skin, whether you're in a white-majority country or not. So, for example, in Japan, a white English-speaking person can be hired to teach English in a Japanese public school while having half the qualifications of their Japanese co-workers, staying for half the school day that their co-workers do, and still make as much as if not more money than Japanese teachers. That's just one example.
Here's some stuff that might help explain it better within the context of the United States, as opposed to within Japan:
http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf
http://nenena.livejournal.com/157146.html
Hope the clarifies some things!
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"Overall it is kind of hilarious that people will pay so much just for the chance that a cat might want to select them as designated ear-scratcher for a few moments"
ya, but you know people can't own cats because of were they live but you know thinking obviously wasn't on his things to do.
(sorry I posted this post in the wrong spot-__-" and I need to pay attention more!!! *hides*)
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