Just wondering..

[Shibo]

Help me out here, folks. Why do people feel the need to criticize others? favorite shows? I was just cruising the reviews the other day and I was very amused to see a comment that ?DBZ fans wouldn?t like this show.? Now I?m not a DBZ fan by any stretch of the imagination.. This isn?t because I dislike the series at all.. I just never bought any of the DBZ stuff and I don?t watch cartoon network.. If and when a perfect HK release comes out, with high quality subs, I will certainly pick it up.. The same goes for dragon ball.. I?ll buy em, when they?re uncut and perfect. Otherwise I got too much other stuff to watch? But I digress. My point is that as anime fans we should try to avoid stereotyping whenever possible. Sure, we all like our own shows but let?s try not to stereotype and decide that we?re better than certain others because of the shows that we watch or don?t watch?Cause know what? We?re not. As much as I like to joke with my DBZ loving friends about the series, I think they know that I?m not serious and that I respect them and their choice of anime. I mean, hell, I get plenty of grief for my preference for shoujo, romance, and kawaii shows, but hopefully nobody looks down on me because of what I like. And hopefully they don?t look down upon any of you. Come on, folks, this is fandom. There are plenty of shows to go around. So like what you like, let your friends do the same, and don?t underestimate the DBZ fans of the world. You?ll find that most of them like many other types of shows.. And I have a theory that a lot of the folks who started watching anime with DBZ feel that they?ve moved ?beyond? the show and are now into other series instead. To those people, I say, get over yourself. Don?t forget where you come from. You?re not ?too cool? for that series now. You've just branched out and enjoy other shows now. Anyway, that?s my rant and that?s all I have to say today. Feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

[Vicious]

I used to love DBZ. I still thinks it's a great series, I just wished they coul've made it shorter. Some of those sagas weren't necessary. I don't think I could sit there and watch all of it now, but there's still some episodes or sagas I'd love to go back and rewatch. Shibo has a point, but all people, not just anime fans, are judgemental of others. It's not right, but there's not much you can do about it.

[liv4speed1]

I second the loving DBZ comment (its what got me into anime ).

But what bothered me more than anyhting else is when I starting watching RahXephon. I heard comments like, "It's a rip off of Eva, you wont like it", "It's nothing compared to what Eva was". Good lord, it's not Eva, I could have even told you that. It seems that Eva is another series that people like to compare to. Sure, its great and all, but do I really care? If I wanted Eva I'd watch it for the billionth time.

I actually find myself liking the series that people make fun of. It seems they think they're funny when the bash a series. Take Pokemon for example. Now I KNOW that a lot of the people on this board like the show, they just wont admit it.

So, how much sense did that make? It seems to make none to me

[Shibo]

I like Pokemon just fine. And I'm not ashamed!

[JunkieJoe]

Pika Pika

lol

[Steve_the_Talking_Pie]

I hate DBZ, and I make fun of you all the time for your love of shoujo, Shibo. Hahahaa just kidding.

First off I'm with Shibo. I watch crap loads of shoujo like Marmalade Boy and romance shonen like Maison Ikkoku, I prefer that. Though that doesn't mean that I can't get into fighting shows and hentai. Hell I love hentai, and like my school girls feeling some feisty tentacles. Likewise, I enjoy watching Kenshiro making some heads explode. Don't make that stereotype.

It's ok to like DBZ. I don't really like and think it has way too many boring episodes. Though I would never look down on people for it. I enjoyed Bishoujo No Senshi which had just as many stupid moments. DBZ is a great stepping stone and a fun romp everynow and then.

I was looking at the Hakusho box set. Some bastard had the gall to make fun of me claiming that I was a "stupid CN watcher". I told him in a calm manner that I was done with my Tomodachi fan subs of Marmalade Boy and not in the mood for my Studio Chikastku fansubs of Bishojou No Senshi. He was clueless on that. Then I told him about Robert Woodhead emailing me info about the YUA Box sets (more clueless stares), and then I finished it off with telling him about my US Renditions set of Gunbuster. Altogether now, another clueless stare. Like Shibo said, we're all fans of anime. Enjoy it and share your favorite series so that everyone can broaden their horizons. People have told me about some interesting shows I want like Slayers, Getter Robot, and various hentai series. I will pick those up at some point and enjoy them.

Side note: I quit skating for this very reason. People weren't having fun with it. It was all about "How high can you ollie?" or "Will you really bomb that 15 step set?". It became a competition to prove superiority and that plain sucked. Get over yourself people.

[Schultz]

I have to agree with Shibo and Steve.. I mean i love DBZ.. (heck i have all of the majin buu saga on dvd plus as much as they will release uncut.. which they bounce around alot. Also i have stuff like MI (still need to finish steve) and Kimiguare Orange Road. Which i just love those stories.. but then i do get into some hardcore violence ones like Ninja scroll which is a classic.. Basically i think its better to how a broad range of stuff and not critizive others people to each there own.. we all don't like the same foods so why should we all like the same anime.. then it would be boring with just one style..

[kakomu]

I think what really feeds into people hatred and conviction is how inflated people's heads become when they watch anime. If we were to take a traditional American cartoon like Looney Tunes (merry melodies) and look at it, all we would find more often than not is slapstick, with many pop culture icons of the time (air raids, Nazis, Hitler etc). Then we look at some other animes like Gundam, and we find a very serious atmosphere with a continuing story, political overtones and the whole "war is hell" motif (quite a contrast to the shotgun to the head routine we see with Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd).

When we see that Japanese and American Cartoons are very different, we get people thinking that anime is automatically "deep" since it's aimed at a different audience than Looney tunes (however, we can automatically show that it's not so when we show them shows like Dragon Half). We get shows like Eva which people adore and claim to be immensley "deep" and "psychological" (people love anything that resemebles "psychological"). The problem with being "psychological" is that more often than not, they aren't, and in fact just make up tons of BS, make unrealistic characters (most of which are obssessive-compulsive and fixated on a single element of their past) and babble endless on irrelevent junk, then we get people trying to make themselves look smart by writing pages and pages about it (I'm aiming this at Eva mostly because it's by far the most popular show to do this sort of thing with). Shows themselves aren't necessarily pretentious themselves (However, Gainax has a reputation of elevating itself to god-like status) but we get all too many people trying to prove how smart they are (and in some cases proving just otherwise) and with that we get a pretentious air surrounding many shows that people latch on to. Also, if a show isn't necessarily deep, but fun to watch they like to throw flak because the show is too "young" for them (I kindly refer to them as the AP English anime fans because of their fond use of the thesaurus to make sure that the average length of any sentence they write is 6 letters).

The main point I want to hit forth is that when watching anime, it's not about who can point out the most symbolic points in a show (I've already seen that a lot of people have too much time on their hands when they write a thesis on Eva characters and their sephiroth counter-parts), but more to watch, have fun, be entertained and have a good time.

While DBZ wasn't the first anime I watched, it's the show that latched into my head and propelled me into my frantic collective state that I am now in. I loved DBZ 3 or 4 years ago, I love it now, and I doubt Ill stop loving it.

[Arcon]

Shibo:

Do as all a favor & stop with expressing your personal opinion as news ... These 2 rant's belong in the general anime discussion forum, not as a hk dvd shop's news ...

That R1 rant on the news page alone was more then enough, sinds it looked more then hypocritical when a shop that's dedicated to HK Bootleg DVD's is defending R1 Company's (and attacking some of the customers there opinions in the process - what in my eye's, is not smart business sense).

Today I get over here, and see "aha, finally some new news, finally that R1 rant is gone" ... and low & behold, what do I read ... another rant ...

People have the right for there own opinion's (even you ) but when you take a single line, where somebody says ?DBZ fans wouldn?t like this show.?, and start a whole discussion about stereotyping of anime as news etc ... This line was that person's opinion that he feared that DBZ fans wont like that show (sinds you don't say WHAT review it was), people can only guess. This is like taking quote's from a article/posting & misrepresenting those quote's. The person who wrote that may have had a valid reason to think what he wrote, but there is total NO reason to start a entire news posting just based on his quote.

Try posting things that interest people (this is a hk dvd site, people will be interested in hk dvd related news), don't try to force discussion's by challenging people there opinion's/expression's. Maybe I'm a bit hard here, but I felt this needed to be know.

Sincerely,
ArconX

[Steve_the_Talking_Pie]

Originally posted by Arcon
Shibo:

Do as all a favor & stop with expressing your personal opinion as news ... These 2 rant's belong in the general anime discussion forum, not as a hk dvd shop's news ...

That R1 rant on the news page alone was more then enough, sinds it looked more then hypocritical when a shop that's dedicated to HK Bootleg DVD's is defending R1 Company's (and attacking some of the customers there opinions in the process - what in my eye's, is not smart business sense).

Sincerely,
ArconX

One of the main points that Shibo was making was to stop your bellyaching (Not at you ArconX), on the prices of R1 prices. People suffer much more than that not only in the anime community. People sound so stupid when they cry over things like DVDs when there are far worse problems. I'd rather think about the $50 I lost on an R1 copy of Maison Ikkoku set than how my uncles died while I was attending their funerals. Did you know that over the past 10 years the Gorilla population is down 83 percent? They will be extinct in another 40 years. Rainforest is being burnt by the acres. People are being slaughtered by the thousands in many countries, and AIDs is claiming more and more victims in Africa. Some cop about 45 minutes from my house, blew away his wife, in a car while waiting in the grocery store parking lot. Then he shot himself in the head while his children were in the back seat. An elderly man riding a bike right by my house, was stopped by a car full of kids in their mid-twenties. They jumped out of the car and beat him with 2X4 boards/baseball bats/lead pipes, for what?!? 5 Dollars. A friend in my English class came from Albania. Her brother had to fight in urban combat when he was only 15. He was shot and permanently crippled (he has to use a cane). Many people in America don't even know where their next meal is coming or if they will live to see another day. Godammit in America and other first world countries (a term a hate), we live better than 90% of people in the world (that does depend on your socio-economic status). Most people in the world can't even watch anime because the country is too poor economically, too much of a totalitarian society or occupied with other strife. The point is if you aren't dealing with any of these problems why argue over a stupid 5-spot.




Sincerely,
Steve_the_Talking_Pie

[Vicious]

I have no problem with Shibo's rants. I think it provides a springboard into some interesting discussions. Honestly, If it wasn't on the front page, I never woul've found it in the forum

On another note, Steve, I don't know about you, but these YUA boxsets are killing my wallet.

[Steve_the_Talking_Pie]

Heheheheh, me too Vicious. I haven't even watched the second and the third is on it's way. I'm still a dependent Vicious, so I don't pay for food, house, etc. So I have about $800 or so in the ol' bank account. So I can buy anime without worrying about other expenses besides college books and stuff.

The only thing that killed me about R1 companies was ADV's new attack plan. They used to do 6 discs with a 5-4-4-4-4-5 set up. Now they do a seven disc, 5-4-3-3-3-3-5. That's just plain stupid. :p

[kakomu]

Arcon, all other updates are underneath the rant. They are in order if you look underneath it.

[Shibo]

Hey Arcon,

While I appreciate the opinion, let's get one thing straight: This is not an HKdvd news site. It's a store and a review site with a message board attached. The rants are just what the title implies. They are rants, and if they weren't personal opinions, they would not be rants. They hopefully add a bit of color to the front page of the site and if the discussion from these first two has been any indication, people have fun with them. I'm not so self-centered that I expect the people reading the rants to take my opinion as gospel, but I'm also not so naive as to believe that the readers who come and read the rants will be so offended that they'll never come back to the site. Who knows, maybe by responding to the thread and discussing, they might meet some of the forum regulars and want to visit the boards.. You know where to find HK news, since I see you on the arcticnightfall forums all the time and you're sometimes the one reporting news. If you don't like the rants, don't read em. I certainly wouldn't if I were you, since you don't seem to enjoy them. The rants take nothing away from the site, as the same updates that you're used to seeing will be right below them. It's my sincere hope that some of the topics raised will interest people enough to get them to respond and discuss the issues at hand. And if you honestly believe that by encouraging people to buy some R1 releases that I'm discouraging them from buying HK releases, then perhaps you don't know your fellow anime fans as well as you think you do, because many of us buy just as many R1's as we do HK releases, myself included. If you disagree, please post a reply in the other rant and voice your opinion. If you'd rather not participate in the rant discussions, then, again, by all means, please don't read them and move on. We'll hold our little discussions without you.

[sanosuke]

dude dont diss shibo's rants they add flavor to the site and incite some interesting debates/conversations on the good 'ol forum. personally i dont give a flying fuck where he puts them because im gonna read it anyway and if i didnt want to read it then i wouldnt.

about the dbz topic, i agree that it is wrong for people to criticise the opinions of others because they are quite simpily opinions and everyone has a unique one. the main problem in this case is that "real anime fans" see its as their duty to act agrogant towards others that think they are "real anime fans". lets face it, we all do. we you see some guy walk into your local anime/manga store and pick up a cowboy bebop graphic novel and say "wow dude! cowboy bebop, wicked!" and then proceed to waffle some bullshit about the only two episodes hes seen and some deep meaning behind the series thats freshly pulled from his arse. hell, you just cant help it, especially since youd seen the entire series and the movie a good year before he could even comprehend the pronunciation of word "anime". vital to this case is the image that a "real anime fan" has of dbz. its the probably the most commerical and popular anime (i consider pokémon a fanchise) known to mankind, the spiderman of anime so to speak. so "real anime fans" tend to dislike dbz and agrogantly criticise their fans all because of its popular image. then again, maybe they just dont like dbz. but i do because its a great show although it does have its flaws, but hey nobodys perfect.