EDIT: As brought to my attention by a commenter, this post was based on a false premise. Konata’s mother did not commit suicide, as I had previously believed. In light of this, I decided to switch this post to draft until later writing up this disclaimer. Rather than hiding it, I’m just going to admit that I goofed.

So then, how did I make this mistake? I think I have an explanation. Back in the late 2000s, when I was watching Lucky Star, I was also reading a manga called Oishinbo, which starred a main character who blamed his father for his mother’s death. In my mind, that carried a strong implication. After hearing about the death of Kanata Izumi, in my mind, this carried a similar implication.

Later, when I decided to write this article, I was depending on my memory of Lucky Star. But the problem was, because my memories of two different manga characters was confused, I remembered them wrong. Not only that, a lot of time had passed, so there was a lot of potential to err.

I already knew that human memories are faulty, which is something I find disturbing and fascinating. There are a lot of things that people remember wrong, but don’t have any way of knowing. In this case, the person who remembered wrong was me.

While some of the commentary that I made in this article may be interesting, it remains that the article was written based on a faulty premise. Still, here it is for you to read if you care to do so.

You may remember Konata Izumi as that happy-go-lucky character from the anime and manga series Lucky Star who is a regular fountain of pop-culture references.

Right from her introduction, and throughout the series, she’s depicted as plucky and snarky. What’s more, she indulges in a high volume of entertainment media, has little filter, and happily embraces the title of “otaku”, a term with a negative connotation in Japanese culture because it means “fanatic”, and is used to describe a person obsessed with entertainment media to the detriment of career and personal development.

However, Konata is a sadder character than meets the eye. Because Konata is a fictional character, it’s easy to take for granted that she’s the way she is because that’s the kind of character the writer wanted. But in real life, people’s personalities don’t develop in a vacuum, there are reasons people are the way they are. To the surprising end of developing Konata’s character, there’s a moment in the anime that shines some light on her background, and her character becomes far more understandable.

Early on, Konata’s friends visit her at her house. While there, they find a photograph, and mistakenly identify the woman depicted as Konata. But Konata corrects them, pointing out that the woman in the photograph is her mother, Kanata.

Then, Konata drops the bomb. She casually reveals that her mother is dead, and that she had committed suicide.

Then, it all starts to come together. Konata’s heavy consumption of entertainment media is a coping mechanism, and her lack of filter and willingness to take on a title that most would consider undesirable just for identity demonstrates the kind of detachment that would naturally come with the kind of person who came to the point that they don’t care what anyone thinks.

And Konata came to that point in an attempt to cope with a broken family.

The fact is, spousal abuse is an epidemic in Japan, and in many cases, the abuse escalates to the point that the wife commits suicide. When this is the case, the woman may be leaving behind a family that attempts to cope in ways that they don’t anticipate.

While Konata’s character remains light-hearted through the rest of the series, from that point on, she appears in a slightly different light. One’s family life, particularly in their childhood, plays a huge role in how that person develops. Behind Konata’s low-filter, carefree attitude hides a tragic family life.

When Lucky Star really took off in popularity, anime fans everywhere developed a huge nerd-crush on Konata, seeing her as a character that they could identify with, and in many cases, she was declared a “waifu-character”.

But considering her family history, a man that finds a woman like Konata would have to make sure that she feels loved, rather than treat her like merchandise.

“The funniest people are the saddest ones.”

Confucius

If you’ve been wanting manga continually delayed as Japanese cultural references are vetted through the filter of some gender-confused blue-hair, you’ve just been handed another L.

That’s because manga publishing company Kadokawa has just announced a similpub, releasing English versions of manga alongside the Japanese releases, effectively translating manga in-house, bypassing western localization companies with a direct-to-consumer model.

That’s a win. A huge, massive, epic win. Not only does this mean that manga is no longer being passed through the industry equivalent of a Twitter puritan with an interest in making it more “safe” for the trigger-sensitive, it also means we no longer have to wait months for a translation. What’s more, it also means no more need for “scanslations” by the fans as we wait for some super-slow American localization company to translate from Japanese to English, which should be all there is to it.

What Kadokawa is doing is the equivalent of “If you’re going to take so long doing something so simple, we’ll just go ahead and do it ourselves.”

I remember that this has long been a problem with video games, until game companies such as Nintendo adopted a similar similpub approach. That was great for people like me, who considered importing copies of Pokémon in the time it takes for an American company to localize the titles, which typically took around half a year, potentially longer, in the event that Nintendo wanted to release the games in the November window, for obvious reasons.

All that waiting for what should have been translating Japanese text to English. If interpreters can translate speakers in real time, reading text and providing translations shouldn’t be hard. Sadly, much of the game industry is still slow in this regard, with Nippon Ichi’s Disgaea being delayed by months as the translation is done by localization company NISA.

Kadokawa’s announcement is excellent news for those who want to read manga in their own language, but at the same time, want the manga to be unfiltered, direct translations of the Japanese originals. An argument can be made by the localization companies that translating is an art form, and sometimes, a direct translation with intended nuance can be difficult to do. It might sound like they have a point, but then, who better to translate than the publishers who have a direct line of contact with the authors, and could therefore more directly determine what was intended?

When manga is translated by a localization company with their own agenda, the result can be information lost that makes the artistic expression less resemble what the artist intended. This has been a problem for a long time, but in times past, it has been easy for localization companies to get away with it. In the nineties, there weren’t fan communities that were as well-developed as they are today. Today, it’s trivially easy to find fans that know the Japanese language, and could quickly point out differences between translations and the originals, often very quickly.

It was just last week that the team of Digimon Tamers did a reunion where they faced an enemy named “Political Correctness”, which had an attack called “Cancel Culture”, in a setting where misinformation was presented unashamedly by corrupt media outlets peddling fake news. This clearly shows that the Japanese don’t have the same values as western media companies, and that they clearly view the likes of cancel culture as an enemy to overcome. Which it is.

And it was the week before that the president of Kadokawa inadvisably suggested that manga writers started self-censoring to make manga more palatable to the likes of Google and Apple. This resulted in huge backlash against the Kadokawa president, and Kadokawa itself demanded that the president take a 20% pay cut, on the reasoning that his remarks would cost the company money.

If Kadokawa had gone through with it, Kadokawa would have been the manga example of Get Woke, Go Broke, showing once-and-for-all that embracing the likes of political correctness would make a manga company less successful. But that didn’t get very far, as Kadokawa as a whole was not as enthusiastic about giving up money just to virtue signal.

And it was earlier this year that localization company Seven Seas Entertainment came under fire for publishing a light novel that was hugely different from the Japanese original, and they eventually caved and re-released the same light novel, bringing it more in line with the Japanese original. The same Seven Seas Entertainment is usually more enthusiastic about releasing manga that has the potential to be controversial, such as when they acquired the rights to publish a particular one about a decade back, but backed down when retailers threatened to stop stocking Seven Seas products.

But with a direct-to-consumer, similpub model, there wouldn’t be any need to drag manga through the localization process, or through stodgy retailers, meaning the only ones that would censor a translation of Kadokawa’s manga would be Kadokawa themselves, and Kadokawa has already demonstrated a lack of interest in self-censorship.

What’s more, a direct-to-consumer, similpub localization model would eliminate expensive middle-men from the localization process, resulting in higher profits for Kadokawa, and faster. Not only that, English-language consumers would get translations much sooner, and more in-line with the Japanese originals. Everyone wins! Except for lazy localization companies.

I know that some in the political correctness crowd might not be happy with this development, and might respond with a boycott of some kind. But what are they doing reading manga to begin with? Weren’t they aware that they were reading censored versions of media produced by writers that don’t have their values? There are better ways of coping with the fact that not everyone has the same ideas as they do, such as getting over themselves, accepting the reality of the matter that different people are allowed to express different viewpoints, and develop thicker skin. Perhaps then, they’ll come to comprehend this development as a win for them, too.

MyAnimeList has provided a list of titles that will be the first to be included in the program, some of which will be available for free for a limited time. This might be a great opportunity, so why not check it out?

Wow, that did not take long! Just days ago, the president of manga publishing company Kadokawa had started trending with his opinion that manga content is more extreme than Japanese swimsuit content, and suggested that he wanted matters to change so that manga would be more likely to be reviewed by American tech companies like Apple and Google.

Kadowaka president Takashi Natsuno faced immediate backlash for his comments, from the industry, from the fans, and from his own company. As a result, Natsuno has issued a public apology, and has voluntarily taken a 20% pay cut for a few months at the request of Kadokawa, which he would be returning to the company.

I’d be speculating, but I suspect that Natsuno’s earlier statement may have been virtue-signaling as damage control for his earlier statement about the opening ceremonies of the olympic games, which this year were hosted in Tokyo. Here is what he said:

“Compared to the Olympics, such shitty piano recitals don’t matter.”

That in particular was a legend statement that he didn’t need to feel sorry for. But sometimes, a person attempts to handle the situation in a manner that makes matters worse, which might be an explanation for why he would later attempt the Japanese equivalent of trying to score intersectionality points. Except, the Japanese have stronger sensibilities than western feminists, which is why his virtue signal exploded in his face.

If any SJW had any hope of infiltrating the manga industry or Japanese culture, it just vanished in a hurry, as “the great mistake” parasite didn’t last long enough to have a significant impact on the intended host company, and was eliminated quickly enough that it leaves no doubt that western intersectional politics don’t stand a chance in Japan.

I’ll be honest, I was willing to play the long game on this one. American content companies take a long time to learn their lesson, so it was a refreshing surprise that Natsuno faced backlash so quickly. And on top of that, he actually listened to criticism. That’s a far cry from the typical western CEO who is too proud to admit his fault, and surrounds himself with pusillanimous suck-ups who are too afraid to tell him that he’s wrong. Ah, the superiority of Japanese corporate culture.

As for American content companies, it seems like they’re finally starting to come around, but it might take a few years before we fully see results. Sometimes, a company figures out what’s going wrong, but they have little choice but to honor commitments that they’ve already made, unless they have a legal out. What’s more, it would make more practical business sense to attempt to recoup losses that they’d otherwise take in full if certain projects were simply cancelled, full stop.

When an entertainment company has been going in a wrong direction for a long time, there is inertia involved in getting them to change course. On the plus side, we’re already seeing some positive change in some of what Disney is offering, particularly related to Star Wars where Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni is involved. Because Kadokawa reversed course so quickly, it’s a definite victory for the manga community.

By the looks of it, Japan is still going to be the place where entertainment is still entertaining. Even though net ground has not been gained, it’s still a victory in the culture war, as it shows that intersectionality’s offensives were not sufficient to overcome, or even so much as make a dent. And with matters trending back around on the western front, victory is beginning to show on the horizon.

For a while now, people have been turning to manga (Japanese comics) as an alternative to American comics, for a variety of reasons. It’s gotten to the point that a manga series has single-handedly outsold the entirety of the American comic book industry.

Among the reasons that people have been turning to manga is that the Japanese are less political in their entertainment, and therefore, anime and manga are yet to be poisoned by intersectional politics, or have their entertainment value ruined by reason of its wussy sensibilities.

For the most part, the Japanese have balked at the idea of their own media being influenced by western or international sensibilities. In that sense, they’ve done well in staying true to their own national identity, and as a result, their entertainment has remained entertaining.

You probably saw the title of this post, and wonder what I mean by “the great mistake”. This is what it would be called when a Japanese media company decides to compromise with the likes of intersectionality or western politics, and in so doing, alienate their audience and consequently learn the hard way why it’s such a bad idea to self-censor and lose customers as a result.

People tend to learn better when they have examples of failure, as such would provide material evidence that a certain decision is a bad idea to those for whom it is not already abundantly evident.

Takashi Natsuno, the president of Japanese manga publisher Kadokawa, has stated that manga is rarely reviewed by the likes of Apple or Google by reason of content which he considers more extreme than that of Japanese swimsuit models.

I’m going to be direct here: I’m not concerned about what Apple or Google thinks when it comes to anime or manga. I get my manga through websites like BookWalker. While BookWalker is available as an app, anything purchased through BookWalker can be read through a browser on a tablet. No need to go through an American storefront.

Something like two hours passed since writing that last paragraph. I went to BookWalker, and got distracted rereading much of Made in Abyss.

Here is what the president of Kadokawa said in a June 22nd video interview, with translation from Nicchiban:

“The fact is that there are people who have miraculously beautiful figures, and there are people who think there is value in that, and there is money to be made. I don’t think it’s fair to say that this is unfair, and I don’t think the argument about whether gravure is good or bad is valid. On the other hand, Japan is full of manga that are more extreme than swimsuit gravure. The publishing industry that I’m in is full of ‘liberal’ people, but I feel that we need to recreate standards that are appropriate for this Internet age, including such things.”

…

“Japan is full of manga that are more extreme than Gravure. This and other factors prevent Japanese manga from being reviewed by Google and Apple. So, I feel that we need to redefine the standards of the Internet age and determine what is acceptable for the public and what is not. The publishing industry I’m in is full of libertarians, but I really feel like we need to rethink things.”

As the article points out, it’s possible that he’s being misinterpreted, and is pointing out that the more extreme manga is difficult to host on Apple and Google. I doubt it, but if his intention was to call for self-censorship in manga, I’m not actually worried about it, for a few reasons.

For one thing, the idea of self-censorship to appeal to western audiences is tremendously unpopular among mangaka. I know that mangaka can speak for themselves in this regard, but it’s easy to see why they’d feel this way. Artists don’t like arbitrary restrictions placed on their forms of expression, which is something that western artists should be able to relate to. What’s more, if someone in an entirely different culture doesn’t like what the Japanese produce, they don’t have to read what the Japanese produce.

What’s more, Kadokawa’s position is so grossly unpopular that even if he used his sway in the company to encourage mangaka to self-censor, the more popular mangaka may use their own sway to seek out a different publisher. Though, in many cases, it’s not as easy as that. Sometimes, content creators are bound by contract. Such “golden handcuffs” are something to watch out for in the event that you want to make a deal with a company to promote your big idea, as is the forfeiture of creative control of your IP, so they’d get to decide what to do with the characters you created. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Then, on top of that, self-censorship would hurt the manga publisher’s bottom line, as readers would quickly feel alienated, and turn to another manga.

But another big point is that Takashi Natsuno is only a temporary president. He was only hired on for a couple months, and isn’t likely to remain much longer. If he’s going to fire his mouth off with such unpopular opinions, he’s not helping his career in the creative industry.

Speaking of firing his mouth off, Natsuno had this to say about the Olympics’ opening ceremony:

“Compared to the Olympics, such shitty piano recitals don’t matter.”

Whether you agree with him on the creative direction of the manga industry, he’s certainly capable of throwing out one-liners that bring down the house.

What makes censoring manga so stupid is that characters in manga are just drawings. They are just lines printed on paper (or shown on display screens, as the case may be). People shouldn’t get so hung up over depictions of violence against people who aren’t even real, or the objectification of characters who, by definition, are merely objects to begin with. They are fictional depictions, and escapist fantasies presented to people for their enjoyment. If you don’t like what’s depicted, you don’t have to consume it.

The idea that art must be a sincere expression of one’s intrinsic values or a vehicle to further a progressive message is a product of a society that has gone awry, and lost sight of the fact that art can simply be creative, without need for justification.

What’s more, people shouldn’t be stuck on the idea that something has to be accessible through the likes of Google or Apple or Facebook, or some content aggregator. If something is anywhere on the net, it’s accessible. If a person thinks that the internet is just one search engine or social media site, they’re stupid. And stupid people shouldn’t decide what everyone else on the internet sees, reads, or shares.

But they’re sure trying.

As for “the great mistake”, while it would have every chance of backfiring in a huge way, the failure it would result in would be clear, plain, and indisputable, showing what would happen when you attempt to replace the audience you already have with a hypothetical audience which hasn’t expressed much interest. If Natsuno were to go forward with “the great mistake”, he’d be a dubious kind of volunteer to make a point that few others in his industry would dare to.

Probably because they’ve been watching from afar what’s already been happening with Marvel and DC. But if a manga publisher makes the mistake, and the damage were to be localized to just one publisher, then it can be said that the SJWs tried on every platform that was available to them, wasn’t able to succeed on any of them, while keeping the damage to a minimum. While it would be better if no publishing company has to be lost, sometimes, some people insist on proving a point, even if it means someone takes the fall. In war, not every soldier gets to return home.

“No one is immune to failure. All have tasted the bitterness of defeat and disappointment. A warrior must not dwell on that failure. But must learn from it and continue on.”

Grand Admiral Thrawn

Have you recently discovered Made in Abyss? If so, you’re not the only one. It seems that one of the media companies that your dad still follows has taken notice, and now wants to make a live-action film based on Akihito Tsukushi’s manga. The film is set to be produced by Columbia Pictures.

That scream of horror you just heard was probably you.

I prefer to keep an open mind when it comes to this kind of thing, but I’m sure I’m not the only one that remembers the mistake that was Dragonball Evolution. In fact, it’s almost as though Hollywood hates the manga and anime industries, and are intentionally trying to sabotage them. If that’s the case, their plan has already backfired in a huge way by illustrating their failure to produce something appealing to an intended audience.

I know that Hollywood is capable of producing animated movies, so what explanation could there be for their insistence on an unwelcome interpretation, especially considering a history of repeated failure in the very same endeavor?

Another potential issue is that the manga and anime both feature children in situations that are not only dangerous, but traumatic and horrifying, and punished in ways that are likely legally not allowed. The prospect of putting child actors through what the plot of Made in Abyss puts the main characters through might raise some eyebrows. Manga and anime are only drawings, and don’t require the participation of actual children, which is one of many reasons why an animated film might be preferred.

Come to think of it, a live-action retelling of the adventure of the Ganja Squad might be interesting. If that were the case, the movie would act as a recount that gives more background on the star compass, and tells the origin story of Faputa, as told by Vueko, without breaking up the flow of the story in the anime.

Hey, open minds, right? Why don’t we save our disappointment for when they actually show something to be disappointed in? After all, people actually liked the Sonic the Hedgehog movie.