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disappointed
This ignorant, xenophobic crap that we allow to happen in the US daily has taken printed manifest as what could be the first salvo of the useless and pathetic war between western comic fans and manga readers.
As a note to any international readers, please refrain from getting the wrong idea, as this kind of crap is not actively condoned in the US, and is spouted by a tiny minority, but it is tolerated by most people and that is not okay. The US isn't racist, they just don't know that much.
As any Asian with knowledge of the history of "oriental" rights in the United States, Asians still have a stigma against them in today's American society. Asian immigrants were not given citizen status in the United States until the late 1940s. Asians on the West coast were rounded up in late 1942, losing basically everything they owned, and basically all their money and property, and put in ghettos, looking like concentration-camps, in the middle of inhospitable deserts in the Midwest. Why? Speculation that anyone who was of Japanese decent or appeared to be of Japanese decent was an Imperial sympathiser. These people were home and business owners, and even though it was ruled unconstitutional before the war ended in 1945, and everyone set free, what can you do when your hard earned money is gone, your storefront was sold to a white business owner, your home was sold to a white family, your fishing boat was confiscated and auctioned off, and you didn't get a single penny of what would today be a value of almost $500,000?
Oh, and none of them had any military or national sentiment or connections with Japan, and all were innocent of any misgivings had against them. Many actually joined the war against the Germans and fought with distinction.
Black men got citizenship and the right to vote in the 1860s, after the Civil War. Women gained suffrage rights in 1920.
Asians were not even given the opportunity to become naturalised citizens until the late 1940s.
There was also the trouble times in the '80s with Honda and Toyota becoming popular with efficiency and quality-seeking Americans and Detroit's... reaction to that.
Now manga is being attacked as "anti-American."
Would people just stand aside and let people say traditional African medicines or African art are "not American," even though some of it is made in the US? Is rap un-American? Are the countless British bands that became sensations here stealing jobs from your poor little American Idol winners?
But manga is okay to bash, huh? Japanese brand cars, despite being more American-made than the half-Chinese Fords parked outside the whale wars watching, auto manufacturing union-members' households, are un-American, right? Svetlana Chmapova isn't an American citizen because she makes jappy comics, right? Everyone who works to translate manga and anime simply works on an agenda to replace Obama with the Emperor!
They did not say this, but, people feel so strongly against Japanese culture and fans of it that yes, this is the basic premise put into words. The words they do use, well, those sentiments and ideas are what brought about those words back in the day. It is horrible, yes, and today, Asians are still discriminated against by the majority in what seems to be socially accepted (albeit still ignorant as hell) ways.
If you still do not understand why this is tasteless and poor choice of advertising, and why it should not be tolerated, please continue reading. There is a terrible history behind this kind of senseless anti-Japanese sentiment in the US, completely ignoring the fact that over 150 years of relations with Japan, the US was only hostile with it for 10 of them, and only at war for five of those ten years. This poster does open old wounds.
For one thing, word choice. Looking back on (really relatively recent) history in the United States. In the early 1980s, Japan was emerging as a stable and powerful world economy. Most of this can be credited to electronics breakthroughs (like the Walkman) and the manufacture of efficient automobiles. This became a threat to some Americans, especially in the auto industry, who were slow to adapt to the "efficiency over luxury" and high-daily-output rates that Japanese auto manufacturers lived by, and did with relative ease.
"Buy American" as a term used against Japanese influence in the US economy, became a mantra of many union labourers simply to encourage xenophobia in capitalism. They could not be bothered to step up output and quality to compete, so they childishly questioned the patriotism of someone simply buying a car that looked better for a better price, because this is how capitalism works. "Buy American" continues to be used to this day against Japanese brands in ignorant communities (who don't know more of a Toyota is made in the US than a Ford, outsourcing parts manufacturing to China).
It got so bad, back in the '80s, these people would actually attack people driving Toyotas and Hondas, smash their windshields, and slash tires. Asians were actually LYNCHED for simply looking Asian. A Chinese exchange student was murdered during one of these rallies. Yes, some riveters became the KKK against Japan. It was a serious problem that (thank god) is behind us.
Yet this ad is rekindling this sentiment (albeit not the actions) for a profit. At the very least, if we look at it as a joke, then, haha- remember that time we beat a Chinese man to death with baseball bats and that one time where we caused millions of dollars in damage by wrecking peoples' cars because they didn't buy them from us? So hilarious! Let's make a reference to that, Pearl Harbor jokes are so last year! Maybe 2013 we can do a campaign to make people buy more volumes of Captain America by doing an exchange where we put volumes of manga into a little scale model replica of Manzanar Relocation Camp and ask them of they have any allegiance to the Emperor, and make them fight German electropop CDs to prove it! Maybe we can go a little less expensive and just stack them up in little towers on a card table and shake it violently and then dump the water cooler bottle on top of it! Sounds like a great idea, let's get on that!
It would be different if this was a campaign to trade in any comics for a volume, but the simple fact that they singled out manga- an industry that is faltering here- is inexcusable. This advertising campaign is a highly ignorant and xenophobic practice, especially given the material DC Comics produced in their past... It is a scummy tactic, one they are using for a buck against their fellow countrymen- manga localisation does in fact bring many good jobs to Americans, even if many lost their jobs over the past few years (ADV, Tokyopop, now even Bandai Entertainment America are closing, and Funimation is in a scramble just to keep going at full output).
They might as well have said "Go make them build a railroad and live behind barbed wire, our comics are our job! 12/7/41!"
The simple fact is, you have to be living under a rock to not notice that manga sections are shrinking by the month, output of manga by companies has diminished, and translation time for some comics is starting to get longer and longer, and the implications this has. For god's sake, Shonen Jump, the most widely purchased magazine in the world, is stopping their American printing presses for good soon! This ad is kicking manga while it is down.
On the homefront, Otaku, Japanophiles, j-pop fans and Anime, manga, and game lovers do NOT need to be bashed and defamed any more than they already are. We don't need nerds calling nerds nerds. Mix in grampaw's Pearl Harbor anti-Japanese sentiment and we have a dangerous mix- one that causes people to think: "You like foreign things, and things I think are for children. I therefore have no respect for you and refuse to enlighten myself as to the appeals of Anime and manga, a medium which I think is a single genre."
Basically everyone hates us as is for the actions of the tiny minority amongst us, and we all have to deal with the awful images that come to mind in normals' minds when Anime is mentioned, that we're all tentacle-loving manchildren and dirty unbathed children in crappy bought Naruto cosplays.
Anime and manga would be loved very much in the United States if not for latent racism in a small minority of the population, discomfort with the foreign (thank the media's indoctrination for that) and (most importantly) that, in liking Anime, you join a niche subculture and are one of "THEM".
When Anime and manga stories ARE brought to the broader audience, they replace all Japanese things and substitute them for American things. Speed Racer and Dragonball, two movies made in the US based on classic manga-turned-anime, had exclusively white American casting. Nothing about that is cultural exchange, even the stories are greatly changed.
Japan (or more specifically, the prefecture of Okinawa) is even removed from the Karate Kid remake, which took the title from a 1980s movie about a kid of Italian decent in California who learns Karate, an Okinawan martial art, from an Okinawan teacher, and made it into a movie about a black kid who moves to the Peoples Republic of China, and learns Kung-Fu.
If America isn't starting to hate Japan again, there are a lot of people that should be nominated for an Oscar in this country.
On a final note, deepening the divide between "those f***ing Weeaboos" and "those neckbearded trolls" is a terrible idea. We have the fantasy football guys to contend with, pointing out that as they check stats, obsess over numbers and keep up every moment on a game, they are also, to quote John Goodman, "NEEEEERRRDS!!!!!!!"
This is an embarrassment to DC and if they do condone this highly offensive scar that's been slashed across the collective face of western comics and their readership, and the United States itself, then god damnit, they really are a disappointment, and should be ashamed of themselves. They really have killed Captain America, not his character, but his very spirit.
TL; DR: Everyone thinks otaku are all scum of the earth when we are not, Anime and manga are good things that many people are missing out on because they are kept ignorant of its merits by society and avoiding weeaboo cooties, this kind of shit to advertise a crappy comic shop is unforgivable and Anime and manga fans do not need this, and I hope DC isn't being shitty about this.
ecstatic