Mid-Season Update and Thoughts on Transformative Works

So I somehow missed the fact that My Hero Academia was returning this spring season.

Actually, I know exactly how I didn’t notice. They began in April with four clip shows that recapped the highlights of the previous 6 seasons. I saw that something was happening with the series but they seemed like OVAs so I didn’t watch them. Until Season 7 began on May 4... So I caught up with the first two episodes.

I think this may be the final season of the anime, unless some commenters I’ve read are wrong. It wouldn’t surprise me. The storyline has gotten dark the past few seasons and since it’s a shounen story, I think we have our final or at least next-to-final boss in Shigaraki/All for One. (The only other villain who needs a resolution would be Dabi. Given his importance to the family of one of MHA’s heroes, I expect Dabi will be handled last.)

My Hero Academia had such a bright, sunny beginning. I have to say that once the story got dark, it stayed dark. I still enjoy the characters and of course I’ll watch it to the end, but I kind of wish it had taken a different route.

As for the rest of the spring season, Unnamed Memory and Spice and Wolf are still lovely and Bartender Glass of God is still an adult viewer’s delight. Tadaima Okaeri is proving to be a bath of emotions, which I more or less expected given the premise (gay omegaverse couple with cute baby).

Kaiju No. 8 is a blast, just a straight-up action ride with fun characters and a lot of humor. All in all, it’s a very good anime season.

Every now and then I feel compelled to highlight certain fan works. The term transformative works applies to fan fiction, fan art, and the like. It doesn’t really cover, however, just how complex and richly nuanced some of these works can be.

Hetalia: Axis Powers remains a fertile story universe for transformative fan works, especially given its huge cast of characters, historical setting, and large female following. The amount of fan art alone is staggering (just Google “Hetalia” and hit “Images” for a small sampling).

Since the story at least tangentially deals with World War II, some of its fan works are dead serious in tone. Lately I’ve been enamored with the following YouTube (or I should say NicoNico) video.

The context is Germany’s relationship with his older brother Prussia. Before you watch, look out for:

1) The enormous level of effort put into this video. This is a fan-created video with fan-drawn art, fan-composed new lyrics for the Vocaloid RIN song “Kokoro” (“Heart”), a fan singing those new lyrics, and a fan video editor to cut it all together.

2) The beautiful artwork. In particular, note the faces, bodies, hands. Whoever drew this is a professional-level artist (and is also completely in love with these characters, you can tell from the detail work).

From concept to completion, this video must have taken months to create. It’s one of countless fan-produced things out there, drawings and fan fiction and doujinshi and videos and dolls and cosplay outfits and everything else you can imagine. All made out of pure love with not a thought of money.

Enjoy. (And hit the CC for closed captions.)

Video Credits (video is below the credit picture):

Funimation Is Finally Redundant and Fall Season Update

Hello again! It feels like a long time since I’ve posted.

I was distracted from the end of September until mid-October getting ready for a convention where I was one of the official authors. I had to order promo cards and arrange for my books to be sent to the convention, etc.

Now I’m back... and just today I took care of some leftover business with my anime subscriptions... namely Funimation.

Last year I wrote about the Crunchyroll-Funimation merger and how clumsily Sony was handling the whole thing. It took so long for Funimation’s catalog of titles to be transferred over to Crunchyroll that after a while I literally forgot about it.

I’ve done this before. I paid for a subscription to the Anime Network (anyone remember them?) back when they were the only site that streamed Zettai Karen Children (Psychic Squad). I kept the subscription long after I bought the entire series on DVD until I finally remembered to cancel it.

So after my convention was over and I had the time to take care of some things, I recalled that I still had my paid Funimation subscription and decided to check whether every series I cared about had been transferred to Crunchyroll by now.

I actually hadn’t logged in to Crunchyroll in months. Remember, my mainstay anime Boruto is currently on a long hiatus. The most recent cour of Bleach ended last month, but Bleach is on Hulu now and not Crunchyroll.

For years, logging in to Crunchyroll was a daily thing for me. It felt odd to log in again after months away.

It was a task to compare the Funimation and Crunchyroll catalogs. (It had been even longer since I’d logged in to Funimation.) I looked at my watchlists on both sites and tried to remember if there were other anime series on Funimation that weren’t on my watchlist but that I’d wanted to watch.

I’d kept the Funimation subscription mainly for four series: 1) Dragon Ball; 2) Junjou Romantica; 3) Hetalia; and 4) Heaven Official’s Blessing.

Funimation had all of the Dragon Ball series, while Crunchyroll only had Dragon Ball Super. I was relieved to see that Crunchyroll now has all of the Dragon Ball titles.

After I’d cross-checked that Junjou Romantica, Hetalia, and Heaven Official’s Blessing were now on Crunchyroll as well, I suddenly remembered The Prince of Tennis, one of my old favorites.

The Prince of Tennis has always been on Funimation but not Crunchyroll - or at least not consistently on Crunchyroll. However, the good news is that the whole series is now available on Crunchyroll... for the moment anyway. I get that licenses can and do end, but it’s good to know that Crunchyroll has it for the time being.

So I canceled my Funimation subscription today. I will be saving a whole $5.99 a month (lol). Well, it starts to add up if you include my now-deceased Netflix DVD subscription which was $7.99 a month.

And speaking of Netflix DVD... I was hoping that Netflix would have some kind of offer for loyal DVD subscribers after Netflix DVD bit the dust, something like a special discount for Netflix streaming for example. And then in early October I received an email from them that offered three free months for streaming with ads and $6.99 a month thereafter, which I’d say is a good offer from them. I also have a whole 12 months to accept the offer, which is cool.

Now that I’ve logged back in to Crunchyroll and updated my watchlist to include all the titles ported over from Funimation as well as everything I wanted to watch in the current season, I feel plugged into the animesphere again. And I have a ton of stuff lined up to watch.

I have to wonder when the Funimation site will be shut down for good. I’m not sure what it has these days that Crunchyroll doesn’t have. I hope people who still have paid subscriptions there will do what I did and cross-check their watchlists with Crunchyroll. Honestly, there doesn’t appear to be any reason to pay for both anymore.

The Merger of Funimation and Crunchyroll and Why Anime Is Still Not Respected

For the past few months, I’ve been receiving emails from Funimation regarding the transition of their anime titles to Crunchyroll.

Funimation and Crunchyroll have the same parent corporation - Sony. As such, it was inevitable that one streaming site would be folded into the other. Unfortunately, the transition process has been clumsy so far.

The Funimation emails stated rather grandly that I could go ahead and cancel my Funi subscription if I was already a Crunchyroll subscriber. However... what they didn’t say was that I wouldn't be able to stream Funimation’s entire catalog at Crunchyroll yet if I did so.

... Which is still the case, and it's now May 2022. It’s been months since the official announcement, but Funi’s titles are being switched over to Crunchyroll at a snail’s pace.

I began to look into this by going to Funimation’s website. Despite maintaining a Funimation subscription for years, I haven’t used it much. My term for it is my “emergency Funimation subscription,” as Crunchyroll doesn’t license one hundred percent of all anime series. They get maybe ninety-five percent (or at least - ninety-five percent of what I would be interested in), and the other five percent was always licensed by Funimation, so I always paid to keep a streaming subscription at both sites.

I looked at the FAQs. Here are two examples of FAQs from Funimation’s website:

Then there's this page:

Once again, they say that we can go ahead and cancel our Funi subscription if we also have a Crunchyroll subscription. But at the same time, they state that “many” (note: not all) of Funimation’s titles will be available at Crunchyroll “by the end of March 2022.” It’s now May, and titles are still in the process of being moved to Crunchyroll.

None of this was really giving me the info I needed, so I signed into Crunchyroll and found this page that lists the Funi titles that are now available at Crunchyroll as of May 17.

The link to this page is here, if you want to read it. This post elicited many comments. I am in total agreement with two of them:

"Some_weirdGuy" [Premium Member]
3/11/22
Gotta say this cause I'm seeing is a lot of "why are people complaining/guys chill out/everyone have patience" type comments -- Why are you doing that? stop that :X - They are a multi-billion dollar company, you are a paying customer, they can shine their boots just fine without your licking. They could have easily uploaded all this content on the back end behind a hidden flag, have everything ready, have all the information/answers written up and ready to go in advance, and *then* in one go make the annoucement and turn it on - thats absolutely possible, reasonable, and indeed what gets done elsewhere. They actively chose to have a messy/confusing, half-baked public rollout - So lets not make up excuses and verbally give them a free pass, they should do better, thats basic quality control/standards. :/ if people have complaints, let them complain, it's absolutely justified to expect better in these circumstances.

"Saryrn"
3/23/22
Can we speed this up a bit, a lot of us have canceled funimation a bit too early it seems as your original announcement made it sound like funimation was moments from shutting off the lights. However at the rate you seem to transfer the shows it sure seems like some people will want to keep funimation for at least one more month if not more at that rate. If it truly is this slow of a process can you at least be more up front about it and announce your intended move schedule, like these shows this week, these shows next week, ect so people can plan accordingly. If you really wanted to calm a lot of the stress people have down, can you just be upfront and let us know what shows will not be making the jump just incase we want to watch them one more time before funimation site truly does shut down. For instance just at the top of my head, I keep waiting to see if slayers is making the jump, I haven't seen it in years and was looking forward to rewatching it before this merge was announced.

Of course, neither of these comments received answers from Crunchyroll. I looked to see which of the Funi titles that I've watched or wanted to watch were now at Crunchyroll. As of May 17, the latest update, both seasons of Muhyo and Roji are now at Crunchyroll, but Sasaki and Miyano, which I’d been meaning to watch, is not at Crunchy yet, nor are Hetalia or Heaven Official’s Blessing. It does look like the entirety of The Prince of Tennis has been moved to Crunchyroll.

If you’re not familiar with the Prince of Tennis series, well... the main canon series took a long time to wrap up. I think the anime caught up with the manga too many times... there were delays... so the canon story had to be finished with OVAs. Then the new Prince of Tennis (Shin Prince of Tennis) manga series began in 2009. There are also several movies that are part of the canon, plus several post-main series seasons, etc. I’ve been in a Prince of Tennis mood lately, so I guess it’s ready at Crunchyroll now for me to pick up from wherever it was I left off at... which I’ll have to figure out. It’s been a while.

This fumbled rollout of Funi titles at Crunchyroll may seem like a minor thing to gripe about. Considering that Crunchyroll began as a pirate site before going legit, and that Funimation’s streaming platform was the buggiest in the business (they did gradually improve it over the years), I understand that this slow transition of titles doesn’t sound like a big deal in comparison.

But in a way, it is. Anime occupies a unique place in the U.S. entertainment industry. It is a significant piece of the entertainment business now in the U.S., not only in terms of revenues generated, but also as something that brings in and engages young fans - diverse fans - the fans of the future, the ones everyone is trying to cultivate. My point is that it’s not pirate sites operating on the fly anymore. Sony is a billion-dollar corporation, yet sometimes the industry still feels like people making VHS copies for their college anime club, with the same level of professionalism and dedication, in other words, not much.

I believe anime could compete on the level of Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, if presented in the right way to the American audience. I really do. So it frustrates me to see this kind of unprofessional treatment of paying customers, as if we should be grateful that we don't have to hunt down fansubs on You Tube anymore and that this is a good enough effort. We're not going to get out of the entertainment ghetto this way, so I hope Sony steps up and takes care of this issue soon.

History Begins Again

The idea of the “end of history” generally refers to Francis Fukuyama’s thesis on liberal democracy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he wrote The End of History and the Last Man, which presented the theory that liberal democracy had triumphed over all other forms of government. Thus, the “end of history.”

We are living in significant times. The war in Ukraine is not only a tragedy for the Ukrainians, but for a staggering number of others who are or will soon be affected by food shortages caused by lack of Russian and Ukrainian wheat, and in the long term, fertilizer, the components of which largely come from Russia.

Vlad Vexler was born in Russia and later became a British citizen. I’ve enjoyed his perspective and insights on the war on his two You Tube channels. In one of his videos I was particularly struck by his characterization of Russians as - not citizens - but basically as “people living in the territory of Russia.”

To me, that ties back to the reality that the Russian people used to be serfs. They weren’t full citizens: they simply “came with the land,” and apparently this is still the case.

Vexler has also pointed out that Russians and Ukrainians, united under the Soviet Union, had a long and interrelated history before that. Many Ukrainians have family and friends in Russia and vice versa. That gives this war a particularly sickening quality. It’s internecine and between family members - kindred on kindred violence.

Young Russians, like Roman at the NFKRZ channel, have fled to Georgia or elsewhere to start new lives:



The outcome of the war is unclear, but this is a turning point in history.

Another video juxtaposes images of the Soviet Union’s end with a sad love song, which inexplicably seems fitting. The music, lyrics and images put together make for a haunting presentation of the end of an era for Russia.



Finally, if this is truly about kindred... a reminder that the pasts and peoples of all nations are more connected than disconnected. This fan-made Hetalia video is a favorite of mine. The original creator took it down from You Tube, but it’s been re-uploaded by others. Whether it’s England with a baby America in his arms, the three Baltic nations holding hands and gazing out to sea, or Hungary defending Austria with her sword, the feeling is the same.



We’re watching history begin again. No one knows if this war will end abruptly or degenerate into a slow grinding slog. Just like the pandemic as a day-to-day experience for the past two years, this war with its uncertainties is draining. It induces fear and speculation, and similar to the pandemic, what comes afterward is anyone’s guess. The only certainty is that history hasn’t ended yet.

The Russo-Ukrainian War

When catastrophic world events take place, each person interprets them through their own filter and every person’s experience and opinion exerts a certain influence on the world.

Looking at it objectively, as someone living in California, I have little to do with the current war in Ukraine. However, I lived the first half of my life under the influence of the Cold War and remember well the feeling that ‘something could always happen’ - that something being a nuclear war.

It was different back then. No internet, no smartphones, only newspapers and the same nightly news on TV that everyone watched because there were no other choices. The internet may seem like a crazy avalanche of unsolicited opinions most days, but I would take that any day over the dearth of choices we had back then.

What is happening in Ukraine, beginning with the Ukrainians themselves, is a tragedy, but huge groups of other people are also affected. The Russian conscripts fighting this unjust war and the Russian people who are being crushed by overwhelming sanctions. The former Soviet bloc nations in Eastern Europe. My own nation, the United States.

The macro filters further down through the micro. The Countryballs community has been riven by this war. Though Countryballs has a worldwide following, the majority of fans are in Europe and include Russians and Ukrainians.

One teenaged Countryballs video creator, Murfety, had to shelter with his family in a basement in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city located near the Russian border. He’s now a refugee. And my favorite mapping video maker, Cherepashka Shusha, who is Russian, posted this on his You Tube page:

The Greek Countryballs artist Icariaball posted a new video about the war.



Icariaball is one of my favorite Countryballs video makers. He hand-draws the balls, which gives them a particularly cute squishy look.

Mr. Spherical has also made a video about the war. His videos are usually zany and comedic, but this one is dead serious.



In the past year, between becoming a Countryballs fan and rewatching Hetalia, I’ve been focusing more than usual on world history. Americans are forward-thinking people. I think it’s one of our strengths. I mean, not that we should be ignorant of history obviously, but we like to look to the future rather than mull over or get stuck in the past.

In Hetalia, Russia is the most mysterious of the five WWII allies. England is blunt and irascible, America is an obnoxious but lovable idiot, China is cheerful and industrious, and France is an absurd romantic. But Russia is an enigma.

He’s basically bi-polar. He has brain damage from living for centuries under horrible rulers. Most of the time he’s a gentle giant, dreaming of sitting in the warm sunshine and gazing at sunflowers. But other times he shows casual cruelty like a child pulling the wings off a fly, unconscious as to what he’s doing. His face darkens and he yells “KolKolKol” and is terrifying to deal with.

In Hidekaz Himaruya’s Hetalia universe, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are siblings. Ukraine is the motherly eldest sister and Russia and Belarus are her younger brother and sister. Of course, since it’s Hetalia, it’s played for comedic effect, as Belarus is psychotic and has an obsessive incestuous crush on Russia, who is scared of her.

Here, North and South Italy are terrified of Russia, while crazy Belarus gives the brothers a death stare from the side.

Of course it’s Hetalia, so I’m not suggesting that the real Russia or Russians can be casually summed up in these psychological terms. Himaruya typically takes a couple of facts about a nation and then spins them wildly for effect, but it’s true that the Russian people have suffered for centuries under one terrible form of government after another, and it has affected them.

Someone once said to me: “First conflict, then meaning.” Change doesn’t normally happen without some kind of dissonance - a conflict - taking place first. Inertia and the status quo are too strong in most people’s lives and the people of a nation are the same way. I think Vladimir Putin will get his regime change, but not in the country he intended. It will take time - and further bloodshed. But I like to imagine Russia free and sitting in the warm sunshine with his sunflowers. It can happen. Let’s send light to all the dark corners of this conflict and give change a chance.

The Return of Hetalia, Countryballs, and World Peace

And just when you thought things couldn’t get more divisive... Hetalia has returned for a new season! ;-D

For some anime fans, Hetalia was a flash in the pan years ago, one of those weird shows with five-minute episodes that you could safely ignore as niche and unimportant. Full of nations anthropomorphized as handsome young men, the target audience was clear, and yes, most of Hetalia’s fans are indeed teenage girls and young women.

Hetalia made a splash when it first came out. The creator, Hidekaz Himaruya, began Hetalia as a web comic series, which was followed by manga books and various anime series.

What made – and makes – Hetalia both hated and loved?

The original series, Hetalia: Axis Powers, set during World War II, features eight main characters: the Axis Powers – Italy, Germany, and Japan, and the Allies – America, England, France, Russia, and China.

Coming from a web comic format, you can see why Hetalia is an anime consisting of short episodes. Each episode is usually set up as a brief skit involving either the three Axis countries or the five Allied countries, and based on WWII events.

I was the copy editor for the first three volumes of the Hetalia manga for Tokyopop. It was one of the most difficult copy editing jobs I ever did for a manga, due to the fact that Himaruya put in a lot of historical footnotes that all had to be fact-checked.

At the beginning of the Hetalia fandom in the U.S., its female fans were notorious for being ultra-rowdy and screamy over Hetalia characters. The volume of fan-made merchandise overwhelmed the artist’s alley at all the anime conventions. For a time, Hetalia was hot in the anime world and it was everywhere.

Hetalia is a comedy series. About World War II. Written and illustrated by a Japanese creator. So... yeah. There were a lot of angry reactions to it at first, with many dismissing it out of hand without ever bothering to read a single web comic, manga volume, or watch a five-minute anime episode.

And that’s a shame, because the truth about Hetalia is that with its humor, its lovable characters, and its poignant moments – it’s about unifying people in the recognition that we’re all human and worthy of regard as such.

I stopped watching Hetalia quite a while back, and didn’t even know the anime had been continuing all this time until I read that Funimation was airing its latest season. So I’ve been catching up on the seasons I missed and enjoying Himaruya’s satirical world again.

On the heels of rediscovering Hetalia, in that odd way the universe has of bringing things of like resonance together when you’re on that path, I recently found a meme that is similar to Hetalia in its strange, humorous appeal.

One day back in 2009, a Polish guy on the Internet created a character image that was a simple ball covered in the Polish flag. Some Russians took up the idea, others got into it, and a whole genre of... something was born.

It’s known as Polandball, due to its origins, or in the alternative as Countryballs. Basically it’s the countries of the world drawn as balls made of national flags with eyes. As with all memes, certain conventions grew around the original idea. The U.K. ball is sometimes shown wearing a top hat and monocle, the America ball often wears sunglasses, the balls speak broken English unless they are English-speaking countries, and so forth.

Countryballs has a huge following on Facebook, Reddit, and other sites. I fell down the rabbit hole on You Tube (You Tube is nothing but rabbit holes, I have concluded). One video led to another, and I found myself spending too much of my time going from Countryballs video to Countryballs video.

The characters are unlicensed and freely available for anyone to use to create artwork, videos, and the like. As you might expect from that, the works made with Countryballs characters range from offensively racist and hatemongering to funny and harmless.

The meme reminds me of Hetalia in that its best use comes when people attempt to unify the audience in understanding other countries and their histories.

An example that genuinely touched me was a video in which modern-day Germanyball is at home one evening when his evil former incarnation Naziball pays him an unexpected visit, with a proposal for him. Note: for an animation of this sort, it has some pretty intense moments.

Title: Countryballs Animated #9 - The Greatest Enemy
Creator: LL



Like Germany, Japan invaded a huge number of its neighboring countries in WWII. When Hetalia first came out, most of the angry reactions came from those countries. I can understand that if Japan came in and killed and brutalized your citizens, a funny anime or manga about WWII probably isn’t what you want to see from a Japanese creator.

I understand it, and respect that opinion, but I also respect a creator’s right to go out on a limb and do the work he or she feels inspired to do. Himaruya received death threats at the beginning, but he weathered that storm, and his work continues.

If you still want to criticize Hetalia for even existing at all, you’re welcome to. But when you consider the virulent racist and misogynist works that exist out there, an anime about how we’re all the same underneath our surface differences is really pretty benign – even if it has to satirize WWII to do it.

Unless a work of art or entertainment spreads lies or incites violence, let it come forth. As simple as it appears, Hetalia has many layers to it, and the underlying intention of its creator shines through. As Germanyball says in the Countryballs video, let’s not forget about love.

Fanime 2012 Report

Fanime was held this past weekend at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. It was my first time back at the convention in a few years. The crowds seemed just as big and I think a pretty good time was had by all.

The front of the convention center was a huge pile of dirt as it's currently undergoing renovations, leaving only a small concrete plaza area for cosplayers to congregate in. I'm not much into cosplay photos, but I did take a few:







The Naruto gathering was predictably huge:



Thursday night, the con got hit by a power outage in the convention center during registration. For once I didn't pick up my badge on Day Zero - I arrived on Friday instead - so I missed the experience of standing in line for five hours only to be told that my registration couldn't be processed, as some fans went through on Thursday evening. I did however have the experience of standing in line for three hours on Friday afternoon to pick up my badge, only to find once I'd gotten to the head of the line that a total of eight people were processing badges - with over 1,000 people in the pre-reg line for hours. No, this didn't make any sense to me either. ;)

That aside, I had a good time at the con. I didn't go to too many panels, but there were a few interesting ones. At the Viz panel the company was pushing Shonen Jump Alpha, their digital magazine, pretty hard. Digital Manga, Inc. held two panels, one on their new imprint and one on Yaoi Con. At their first panel, I ran into fellow editor Daniella Orihuela-Gruber and we sat together to hear DMI's Ben and Kwame discuss the company's new imprint, Platinum Manga, which is bringing classic manga in translation to the English language market. The imprint's first two manga releases were both Osamu Tezuka works, Swallowing the Earth and Barbara, and both were crowdfunded via Kickstarter. Their next manga will also be a Tezuka book, but they weren't authorized to release the name of the title yet at the panel.

The Yaoi Con panel, held later that day, was a bit different from the usual. Yaoi Con is now owned by DMI and after ten years in San Francisco, DMI chose to move the con permanently to the Los Angeles area. Fanime is in the Bay Area of course, so there were some in the audience who questioned the move, citing the increased expense for local fans to attend and also a concern about LA's perceived lack of tolerance toward LGBT people. (Actually Long Beach, the con's new home, has a long-established LGBT community, something many outside LA aren't aware of.) The DMI staff addressed the questions adequately, I thought, but in my view there will be some attrition the first year in LA no matter what DMI does or doesn't do. Some will make a point of not attending on principle. The second year in LA will be more indicative of whether the con will survive the transition or not.

At the panel, DMI also announced Yaoi Con's guest of honor for 2012 - Uki Ogasawara, the mangaka of Black Sun, a gorgeous two-volume manga, which gives me the excuse to post the cover art here (did I mention the art is GORGEOUS?):




As an aside, Fanime teamed up this year with a sister convention, Clockwork Alchemy, held at one of the official con hotels. Since it was free (registration for one got you into the other), I went to take a look.

I've been a fan of speculative and genre fiction forever - science fiction, fantasy, horror. It's rare when I come across a niche area of speculative fiction/art where my reaction is, "I don't get this," but steampunk is one of those niches. I don't understand the appeal of an alternate-history Victorian England with futuristic machines; I just don't. Others find it wonderful, which is great for them. There's room for everything in speculative genres.

Besides not getting the appeal - which is just my personal preference, or rather non-preference - steampunk, or to be more carefully accurate, the Clockwork Alchemy convention, was very noticeably and almost exclusively attended and staffed by Caucasians. Especially coming off the shuttle bus from Fanime - which, like all anime conventions in California, is gloriously mixed with an eyeball estimate of about 70 percent non-whites (Asians, Blacks, Latinos, Pacific Islanders) and 30
percent Caucasians, the contrast was jarring - and not particularly welcoming.

So I zeroed in on the one person of color I saw at the convention - writer/artist Elizabeth Watasin, a Thai-American:



Elizabeth is the author of The Dark Victorian: Risen, a steampunk novel. We had a brief but engaging discussion on steampunk and its fans. To read more about Elizabeth and her work, you can visit her blog here: http://www.a-girlstudio.com.

To finish up about Clockwork Alchemy - I'm not suggesting a convention about a science-fiction Victorian England should have as multicultural a fanbase as anime - although there's no reason why that shouldn't be the case either. And it's a leap from seeing a fanbase that appeared to be all white to assuming this means... anything. It's just that the contrast with Fanime was so stark that I couldn't have been the only person who noticed it. I don't know if steampunk simply doesn't attract a wider fanbase or what it might be - but I was quite happy to return to Fanime after my brief side trip to Clockwork Alchemy.

Back at Fanime, I went to two Hetalia fan panels. Hetalia fans have a rep for being out of control - which is true. That's what I like about them. ;)



Hetalia fans tend to be young and female, and they do a lot of shrieking about the bishonen male countries that comprise the cast of Hetalia when they're at conventions. Think hormones mixed with endorphins - lots of hormones mixed with lots of endorphins, with maybe a sugar high or two thrown in. I could tell you what the two panels were called and were supposedly about, but all Hetalia panels are the same. A group of Hetalia fans cosplaying as their favorite countries sits on stage while fangirls line up to ask questions of each country. The result is a lot of country-on-country bashing and suggestive humor, and again - much, much shrieking.

Anthropologists have researched the coming-of-age rituals that young males go through. In all seriousness, I think Hetalia fandom is a kind of similar ritual for certain female anime fans. Sitting in the audience, I found myself thinking, where does all that wildness disappear to? Before a subdued adulthood closes in on them, let them be Hetalia fans. No, really, I mean it. That energy has to go somewhere.

And as Walter Amos has noted in his excellent panels on Hetalia and history, Hetalia has made history buffs out of many of its fans. If a Hetalia fan reads up on the Austro-Hungarian empire because the marriage of Austria and Hungary is Hetalia canon, can this be a bad thing?

I was a Hetalia fan before I was the copy editor on the three Hetalia manga volumes. I don't shriek at conventions, but I'm still a fan of the Hetalia universe and if you've never read the manga or haven't seen the anime yet (I strongly suggest watching the sub, not dub version - the dub version changes the words too much), you might find it a lot better than you think.

In sum, Fanime was fun this year and I'm glad I went. And maybe next year they'll have more than eight people processing badges on Day 1 - we can hope. ;)

Hetalia Vol. 2 - No. 1 on the NYT Manga List!

The success of Hetalia keeps rolling along. :)

The English language version of Hidekaz Himaruya's webcomic/manga has proved to be as much of a hit as the original Japanese version. Currently, Volume 2 is No. 1 on the New York Times Manga Bestseller list. I was co-copy editor on this one and the series continues to be fresh and entertaining in its second volume.

Also, Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. 3 is now available. You may notice that Vol. 3 is more expensive than the first and second volumes. Here's why: the eight volumes of Yashakiden were originally released in Japan as four "omnibus" volumes, each omnibus containing two volumes of the series. Here in the U.S., Digital Manga Publishing released the first two volumes as single volumes, but starting with Vol. 3 the rest of the Yashakiden series will be released as omnibus volumes - just as they were in Japan.

In other words, here's the breakdown:

Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. 1 = one single volume
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. 2 = one single volume
Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Vol. 3 = two volumes in one: it's Vol. 3 and Vol. 4 combined.

The eight-volume series will conclude with Vol. 4 (containing Vol. 5 and Vol. 6) and Vol. 5 (containing Vol. 7 and Vol. 8). I am working on the English adaptation of omnibus Vol. 4 now, so look forward to its release sometime later this year.

Guess Who's Number One?

Why... it's our friend, Veneziano... aka Hetalia himself!

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-10-01/new-york-times-manga-best-seller-list-september-19-25

Tokyopop's Hetalia: Axis Powers, vol. I manga is No. 1 on the New York Times manga bestseller list!

I was the copy editor for this volume, and my thanks to Tokyopop editor Cindy Suzuki for giving me a credit in the book for my work. To be honest, it actually was a lot of work - as you'll see if you read it. There were numerous historical references to be checked, as well as country profiles to read through carefully and a lot of footnotes to proofread. But it was a labor of love for me - as I'm a big fan of Hetalia - and Tokyopop did a beautiful job with the production and final product. (I'm looking at a copy of it right now.)

I've added Hetalia: Axis Powers, vol. I to my Amazon store in the sidebar, along with other books I've worked on recently, including the third volume in the Eureka Seven light novel series and the third volume in the Mobile Suit: Gundam 00 series, both for Bandai Entertainment. Feel free to visit my store and take a look!

And for all you Hetalia fans... don't forget about international Hetalia Day (U.N. Day).

http://hetalia-day.com/2010/directory.html

Anime Music Videos as Art - Part I

Sometimes I find myself watching anime music videos on You Tube without fully grasping the enormity of what I am looking at. As with fan fiction, music videos put together by fans are a form of art in themselves, as well as being a further conjugation of the original creator's work.

A simple three or four minute video is the result of a continually-evolving universe of creativity. Let me try to explain what I mean.

My friend and fellow blogger Yumeka and I watched the following video together a few years ago:



You just watched "Sail On," a music video featuring clips from the One Piece anime series. Now, stop and think for a moment about what was involved in the creation of this video.

Many years ago, mangaka Eiichiro Oda came up with the idea for a manga story about pirates set in a mythical universe. In this universe, a small group of people from diverse backgrounds would band together to become pirates, and sail the high seas in search of a legendary treasure called the "One Piece."

Taking clips from the anime series, and setting them to an English-language rock song (with the title and theme, "Sail On") makes for a nicely-done tribute to the anime known as One Piece. If you knew nothing about One Piece before watching this video, you would still be able to understand that this was an animated series about a group of people who become pirates (we see them sailing together on the pirate ship) and friends (we see them fighting on the same side against their enemies), with a general adventure theme overall.

It may look simple, but think for a moment about what was needed to get to this point: 1) Eiichiro Oda, the original creator, came up with the idea, and eventually executed it as a manga; 2) which became popular enough that; 3) it was then made into a successful, still-running anime series in Japan, which then; 4) became popular with manga and anime fans outside of Japan, where; 5) someone or some people who bill themselves as Many Lemons Productions got the idea to do a music video as a tribute to One Piece and; 6) chose the song "Sail On" by the band Masterplan as the audio soundtrack, and then; 7) using video-making software, chose the clips from the series and arranged them to fit with the song lyrics.

Many Lemons Productions then; 8) uploaded it to You Tube, where; 9) I watched it with my friend Yumeka, and subsequently; 10) several years later, while writing this blog entry, I remembered this particular video and decided to upload it to this post, at which point; 11) you, the reader, just watched it.

What I'm trying to get at here, is to highlight the numerous levels of effort and many layers of creativity which culminate in the creation of something like a fan-made music video. Not only creativity in the original story, but even after its distribution the layers pile on through the years like ripples moving outward in a pond from a single initial point. As with any other creation that is loved, it doesn't stop with its making; but with further explications and interpretations of the original story (e.g., fan fiction, fan art, music videos) and following that, the appreciation of the audience for these new interpretative works - the story takes on ever-evolving levels of meaning and depth as a truly shared experience between its original creator and us - the fans.

Creations need an audience to appreciate them. Without an audience, it's like the old zen koan about a tree falling in the forest. Essentially, without someone to hear it, it's as if it never happened. So to marginalize the participation of the fan base in interpreting and reflecting back what they love about a story is, I think, a mistaken view of the value of fans and what they themselves add to the process.

When I was a new anime fan, the following video brought tears to my eyes:

Konoha Memory Book

L.E. | MySpace Video

The maker of the video is named either "Maguma" or "Dynamite Breakdown" (possibly being one and the same person).

I won't go through the same exhaustive process again, but basically, like the "Sail On" video, this video also had its genesis with a single creative thought in the mind of Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of the Naruto manga, who years ago came up with a story idea about a young ninja named Naruto who dreamed of becoming the Hokage of his village.

"Konoha Memory Book," however, adds a few layers of art. Unlike a simple tribute video like "Sail On," this video goes further and tells a unique story of its own. With the addition of certain of the lyrics being superimposed on screen at key moments ("It's time to say it - Good bye"), and in the choice of images to accompany said lyrics, the video becomes about mourning the fourth Hokage, and then about Sasuke mentally saying goodbye to Konoha and to Team 7. Another layer of creativity and individual interpretation has been added, making the video a compelling reframing of certain aspects of the story.

Finally, there's a fan-made video on You Tube based on Hetalia: Axis Powers that to date has attracted over 200,000 views. If you're not familiar with Hetalia, in order to understand the video you should know that the story is about the nations of the world that were involved in WWII, personified as (mostly) male human characters.

Get some tissues ready. Sorry. ;)



This video, "You Raise Me Up," unlike the first two videos, utilizes no clips or drawings from the official Hetalia anime or manga. Every single art image used in the video is fan-drawn art.

If there are one hundred art images in this video, then this video is the compilation of the work of one hundred artists (one hundred and one, actually - including the video maker, someone who bills himself or herself as "xRaerin").

Not only that, but it goes beyond being a simple tribute or even telling a unique story. What this video does is that it takes the universe of Hetalia and interprets it from such a different angle that it becomes a new work of art. In it, xRaerin has created a story of the relationships between countries, seen as family groups (China as the "big brother" of Japan and Korea; the transatlantic "family" of France-father, England-mother and their two sons America and Canada; etc.), and further infuses this with the song's theme, "you raise me up." "Raise me," in the sense of - as one example - England being the one who "raised" America; and "raise me up" in the sense of recognizing that we are interdependent on each other as nations and as human beings; that no nation can stand alone; that we all rely upon each other.

You don't have to have watched Hetalia to appreciate this video; but if you have, the video is even more impressive for its creator's choice and arrangement of images. The final sequence - where Italy surprises Germany with flowers, and concluding with the Holy Roman Empire giving flowers to Chibitalia - adds another jolt of emotion when you recognize the link-back and what this means in terms of the two countries' relationship.

The beautiful music and lyrics, along with the fast-moving panorama of images combine to make "You Raise Me Up" into an unforgettable viewing experience. It is art layered upon art.

So what happens when the fan maker of videos takes things a few steps further - and creates a video in which relationships that didn't happen between characters in the anime are now made to happen? Stay tuned for Part II.

Hikikomori Nation

In one of Hidekaz Himaruya's Hetalia: Axis Powers comic strips, entitled "Black Ships Have Come," Japan is portrayed as a hikikomori, a person who chooses to shut himself inside his home and not deal with the outside world.

The strip, of course, refers to what is called the "opening of Japan" in 1853, when American naval commander Commodore Perry arrived with his black ships, demanding that Japan start trading with other nations.

In the world of Hetalia, this is shown as Kiku Honda - the personification of the country of Japan - reacting to Alfred F. Jones' (America's) arrival in his country thusly:



Later, still terrified, Japan can only think of ruses to get America to go home:



When nothing works, Japan - with great resignation - finally opens up and begins to trade with other nations.

But I sometimes wonder how much Japan has really opened that door. Since becoming an anime and manga fan, one of the things that has struck me about Japanese society and culture is how insular it is. On the surface, the Japanese have absorbed all kinds of outside influences: American movies and pop music style, English (or Engrish) words everywhere, curry and spaghetti and kaki for dessert. But Japan still seems like 127 million people who are all part of a single (and possibly - dyfunctional) family. They understand each other - but to outsiders, they are a closed book.

This is a nation that believed that avoiding contact with the outside world for 200 years was a good idea - until one day, near Tokyo Bay, black ships arrived with big, enormous guns. (I can just see it now - the Japanese generals standing at the harbor, looking at those big guns and saying: "Oh.")

They had no answer for such weaponry. Their response was to start modernizing their weapons and methods of manufacture. And they went off to war with China, Russia, then China again; until WWII began - and we all know what happened then.

Since the end of WWII - and the effective end of Japanese militarism - it's Japan's economy that has been the focus. From the 1960s through the early 1980s their economy was the envy of the industrialized world; but it has been stagnant for years since then. One reason might be the rigid corporate structure, with its salaryman workaholism and hidebound gender roles (i.e., women employees as "tea ladies," seen as only working until they can get married and have children). In today's globalizing world, their corporations appear to be too bound by traditions that don't carry over effectively to a changing international business environment.

One could argue that individual countries have the right to be monocultures and to maintain myopic, insular business models. Japan is still the second largest economy in the world and has achieved much to be justifiably proud of. But Japan only has 40 percent food self-sufficiency and 100 percent dependency on outside sources for energy (i.e., oil). Such facts dictate that flexibility, openness to outside ideas and willingness to do whatever pragmatically works to reinvigorate one's economy should take precedence over clinging stubbornly to "the way we've always done it."

I see China and India sending their young to be educated and work overseas, and returning home with experience in different business models - and I worry about Japan. Their 'postwar miracle' days are long behind them, and their birth rate is falling at an alarming pace. Not only their prosperity, but their people are literally disappearing. I fear that as Japan continues to restrict immigration, maintain old dinosaur ways of doing business, and operate as a severely gender-stratified society that China and the other Asian nations are eating Japan's lunch. That island-nation mentality still remains; and the image of Japan as hikikomori, playing video games and surfing the net with his door firmly shut while the outside world undergoes enormous social and business changes, is troubling.

There may be hope yet for a change of outlook. As a cheery America shares with Japan:



The world is more interconnected now and no country - particularly not energy-dependent Japan - could in reality isolate itself from the world these days. But the image of little Kiku slamming that door still resonates.

Translated panels from http://aph.starry-sky.com.

Hetalia and World Peace

In the past two weeks since I last wrote about Hetalia: Axis Powers, I’ve had happen to me what happens to all fans at times – and you can never predict which series will do it. I’ve suddenly become completely addicted to the series. And in experiencing the Hetalia universe more fully, I’ve also discovered that it inspires a unique reaction in its fans.

Hetalia: Axis Powers is a comedy about personified countries, particularly the major players involved in WWI and WWII. The comedy can be extremely broad, even outrageous at times, and all of the characters are ridiculous – and lovable.

Germany is a big muscular stiffneck, a rigid rule-follower with an unexpected soft spot in his heart for the cowardly and happy-go-lucky Italy. Japan is introverted and sexually repressed. America is irritatingly cheerful, issuing directives to all in a loud and dorky voice. When asked to find Japan on the map, America opens his map and can’t find it; because America’s world map only shows America and nowhere else. England is sardonic, intelligent and cunning, but he also cavorts with fairies and unicorns. France is a drama queen and sex addict; Russia has a split personality with an evil twin side; and China gets berated by England for building Chinatowns wherever he goes - even inside the Allied conference room.

Creator Hidekaz Himaruya quite possibly only intended to be cute and clever with Hetalia, and not profound in any way. But whatever Himaruya originally envisioned his universe of Hetalia to be, the fans have now taken over and made it into yet another thing. There is now an enormous amount of Hetalia fan fiction, art, and music videos to be found across the fanscape. And the series has inspired thoughtful reflections from the fans. Some comments from You Tube: “Hetalia is the best Anime that ever happened to the world! If our world leaders watched it, maybe we could all get along? xD” is one. Another one: “sometimes i wonder if this anime could change the world.”

At one point in the series America steals Germany’s diary, and the Allies read Germany’s daily account of how Italy drives him insane. “But he’s my only friend,” Germany concludes. The Allies fall silent at this. The countries being depicted as regular people opens a window to recognizing them as us – which means, ultimately, there is no “them” out there: just all of “us.”

Will Hetalia actually bring world peace? Yes, it’s a stretch, but world wars don’t start in a day, and world peace probably comes into being bit by bit as well. Should the world’s major powers ever head down the path to world war again – God forbid – it’s now likely that young people, instead of accepting without question the old stereotypes their grandparents taught them, will be more apt to recall Hetalia’s Germany screaming hoarsely at Italy that he’s gotten it backwards, that it’s the pin you keep in your mouth after pulling, you idiot, not the grenade; or England throttling America after America insults his cooking; or France tricking the other countries into taking their clothes off for Christmas; or any other of the bizarre, off-the-wall, crazy moments in the Hetalia universe. Stereotypes dissolve in the face of humor, because just under the surface of humor is the humanity we all share.

So, if one end of the Hetalia reactivity scale is, It's offensive, disrespectful and shouldn't be allowed at all and the other end is, This will bring world peace at last! ...I think it's fair to say that Hetalia: Axis Powers is legitimately somewhere in the middle. And I would add: leaning heavily toward the world peace end.

Hetalia: Axis Powers

In an entertainment universe that routinely features stories involving giant robots, maid fetishes, schoolboys with supernatural powers, and demons, you might think there is no ground left uncovered in Japanese manga and anime; that everything has been done at least twice already.

And then something like Hetalia: Axis Powers comes along.

It would be difficult to imagine anything more controversial or provocative – or hilarious – than Hetalia: Axis Powers. Set in the period between WWI and WWII, Hetalia features the Axis nations (Germany, Japan and Italy) and the Allies (America, England, France, Russia and China) as anthropomorphized characters – in other words, the countries are represented by people. “Hetalia” is a created word – it’s a combination of hetare (Japanese for “useless”) and Italia (Italy). In other words: “Useless Italy.”

Germany is a stern, rigid, by-the-rulebook kind of guy; Japan is small, quiet, and uncertain of his place among the other nations; and Italy is a happy-go-lucky young man who is fond of pasta dishes and possesses a collection of white flags with which to surrender to the enemy.

Here are the Allies:

America is the tall, cheery young man with glasses and a bomber jacket; England is the one with the huge eyebrows; France, the blond, is a fey metrosexual who flirts with both sexes; Russia, in gray, seems calm and gentle, but his cruel and bloody history has actually left him a trifle unhinged (in one episode, he jumps sans parachute from an airplane as it flies over snow-capped mountains, saying simply, “snow is really soft”); and finally, China is the suave guy with a ponytail. He acts as the elder brother of the Asian nations.

Hetalia: Axis Powers began life as a webcomic. It was later published in hardcopy manga format, and finally was produced as an online anime series, now in its second season. When the first season of the anime was about to be broadcast on TV in Japan, Hetalia’s creator, Hidekaz Himaruya, a 23-year-old design student in Tokyo, began receiving death threats from Koreans.

And Korea isn’t even in the anime.

Mr. Himaruya has since fled Tokyo, and now lives in New York City.

What makes Hetalia unique? Besides characterizing the nations of the world with stereotypes and insults and presenting wholly inaccurate views of historical events – which I don’t think any other anime or manga has ever done (or, to be honest, has probably ever wanted to do) – it has a crazy-quilt storytelling format, with bits and pieces of various storylines appearing, disappearing and unexpectedly reappearing in later episodes. And, oh…

Each episode is only five minutes long.

Hah?

Not only that, but every episode begins with the grandiose title opening, and ends with a cutesy animation and song – and sometimes even a preview of the next episode – thus leaving approximately 3:50 for the actual episode itself.

It’s hard to describe what a typical episode of Hetalia is like, but you could do worse than to watch Episodes 18, 19 and 20 as samples. Episode 18 features the Allies surprising the Axis nations, who are sitting around a campfire on the beach of a deserted island, and capturing them. They do this by America calling out China – “China, I CHOOSE YOU!” – much like Ash Ketchum calling out Pikachu from his Pokeball. China proceeds to bash Germany and Japan with a wok (a wok!), while Italy, naturally, begs not to get hit as he frantically waves one of his white surrender flags.

Canada makes his first appearance in Episode 19. Canada is a doppelganger-type twin to America – the two characters have the same face – and he carries a pet polar bear, who always forgets his master’s name. The joke here is that this is because Canada is… forgettable. In this episode, Canada appears as a ghostly, spectral figure at an Allied summit, patiently waiting his turn to speak, which of course never comes.

In Episode 20, the “America’s Storage Cleaning” storyline finally reaches its climax. As America cleans out his basement, he finds a musket with a scratch on it. He then recalls a moment on the battlefield during the Revolutionary War when England knocked the musket out of his hand, but then sank to his knees weeping, unable to deliver the killing blow to the boy he raised. It’s a scene that proves that even in the most absurdist animes, in the midst of ribald weirdness, there are moments that can suddenly and honestly move you to tears.

That’s anime for you, at its best.

If you’re already accustomed to out-there anime – as a past viewer of Nerima Daikon Brothers, say, or Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo – Hetalia: Axis Powers will probably not be too much of a stretch for you.

If, however, this is your first introduction to anime – you’ll either run screaming… or be hooked for life.